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 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 1918 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023021169 
 
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 and 
 
 Social Progress 
 

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Christian Missions 
 
 and 
 
 Social Progress 
 
 A Sociological. Study of Foreign Missions 
 
 By the 
 
 Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D. 
 
 Students' Lecturer on Missions, Princeton, 1893 and 1896; Author of 
 
 " Foreign Missions After a Century " ; Member of the American 
 
 Presbyterian Mission, Beirut, Syria 
 
 "The new age stands as yet 
 Half built against the sky. 
 Open to every threat 
 
 Of storms that clamour by : 
 Scaffolding veils the walls. 
 And dim dust floats and falls. 
 As, moving to and fro, their tasks the masons ply-" 
 
 William Watsok 
 
 In Three Volumes 
 Vol. I. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
Copyright, 1897, by 
 Flbhino H. Revell Comfant 
 
TO 
 
 MY WIFE 
 AS A TRIBUTE OF THE HEART 
 
 AND 
 
 A MEMENTO OF HAPPY YEARS 
 
 THIS BOOK IS 
 
 INSCRIBED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The Students' Lectures on Missions at Princeton Theological Semi- 
 nary, which form the basis of the book now issued, were delivered by 
 the author in the spring of 1896. The subject treated — " The Sociologi- 
 cal Aspects of Foreign Missions " — was suggested to him by the students 
 themselves, especially by members of the Sociological Institute and of 
 the Missionary Society of the Seminary, with the special request that 
 it be chosen for consideration. It has proved an absorbing and fruit- 
 ful theme. The interest which it elicited was shown by requests from 
 the faculties of Aubmn, Lane, and Western Theological Seminaries 
 to have the course repeated at those institutions after its delivery at 
 Princeton. The lectures were limited to an hour each, but in preparing 
 them for publication they have been recast, for the most part rewritten, 
 and greatly expanded. This is especially true of the second lecture, 
 and will be so in the case of the sixth, which will appear in the second 
 voliune. 
 
 It was apparent from the scope of the subject, and the range of data 
 required to treat it intelligently and with any basis of authority, that no 
 adequate discussion was possible without much fresh and explicit in- 
 formation. The effort was made to obtain this not only from the 
 current literature of missions, but directly by correspondence with 
 missionaries in all parts of the world. A carefully prepared circular, 
 with detailed questions upon special aspects of the theme, was sent to 
 over three hundred missionaries, representing various societies in many 
 lands. The replies were of the greatest value and pertinence, and gave 
 to the author an abundant supply of data from which to collate his sub- 
 ject-matter and upon which to estabhsh his generalizations. Thus 
 through the kindness and courtesy of missionaries an unexpected basis 
 of testimony has been provided for an intelligent judgment as to the 
 sociological scope of missions, and for a broad survey of this somewhat 
 neglected phase of the subject. The investigation was entered upon 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 with th* conviction that it was a promising, but only partially recog- 
 nized, side-light to missions. It was soon found to yield such varied 
 data of significance and value that a fresh evidential import was given 
 to it, and it became apparent also that it shed a new lustre over the 
 whole field of mission work. 
 
 The original authorities to be consulted were not in this instance 
 ancient documents, but living men and women who were able to give 
 expert opinions based upon personal experience. The assertion, some- 
 times whimsically made, that missionaries cannot be trusted to give 
 reliable information concerning the religious and social status of non- 
 Christian lands is in itself improbable and not justified by experience. 
 The best knowledge which the world has to-day of the social condition 
 and spiritual history of distant peoples whose inner life can only be 
 known by close contact and long observation, is from Christian mis- 
 sionaries,^ whose statements, moreover, are generally fully paralleled 
 by abundant testimony from candid and authoritative lay sources. The 
 moral dreariness and terrible realism of much that they have had to 
 report has made the world half willing to regard it as overdrawn or 
 based upon a misjudgment of the facts. It is sufficiently clear, how- 
 ever, that after all their testimony is true and unimpeachable, and their 
 words the honest reflection of realities, while they themselves are not 
 unlike that ideal artist portrayed by Kipling's graphic pen, who 
 
 " Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of 
 Things as They Are." 
 
 With the resources at his command which have been mentioned, 
 and as the result of a dihgent search through the reports and periodicals 
 of many missionary societies for some years past, the author has pur- 
 posely multiplied references and notes, with a view to facilitating the 
 use of the volumes either as a text-book or as collateral reading by 
 students of foreign missions. The information given in the notes is 
 worthy of confidence and in many instances not easily accessible, at 
 least in collated form. The author— in common, he is sure, with his 
 readers— desires to express to all who have so kindly contributed to the 
 subject-matter of the volumes his grateful acknowledgments and large 
 indebtedness. He has tried, as far as possible, to designate the individ- 
 uals from whom he quotes, but a burden of obligation of a kind too 
 general to admit of special acknowledgment still remains, for which he 
 can only render his thanks. He must also express his conviction that 
 were it not for the help thus freely given, the book would have lost 
 » Jevons, " Introduction to the History of Religion," p. 6. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 much of the representative character which may now fairly be claimed 
 for it. He acknowledges also with thanks the kindness of many friends 
 who have forwarded books, pamphlets, reports, periodicals, and news- 
 papers from mission fields, and of the officers of missionary societies 
 who have extended to him needed facilities, as well as of all those who 
 have aided him in the search for necessary data, and have assisted in 
 other ways in the completion of his task. He especially appreciates 
 the favor rendered by those who have furnished or loaned photographs • 
 for use in illustrating different phases of mission effort. 
 
 It has not fallen within the scope of the author's plan to extend his 
 survey so as to include other than Protestant missions, although much 
 of interest might be noted in the humanitarian service which the Greek, 
 Roman Catholic, and other Christian churches have rendered to man- 
 kind. An inviting field of research awaits representatives of these 
 communions who can give the subject the study which its historic 
 importance and present activities demand. 
 
 That there is a striking apologetic import to the aspect of missions 
 herein presented is evident. It is not merely a vindication of the so- 
 cial value of mission work, but it becomes, in pro- 
 portion to the reahty and significance of the facts The apologetic import 
 put in evidence, a present-day supplement to the of the theme, 
 cumulative argument of history in defense of 
 Christianity as a supreme force in the social regeneration and elevation 
 of the human race. The great argument in vindication of the benefi- 
 cent results of Christianity as a social dynamic in history has been 
 hitherto based upon the outcome of the conflicts of the Christian religion 
 with ancient heathenism in the early centuries, resulting in the gradual 
 differentiation of Christian civilization, with its distinctive insignia, from 
 the classical and medieval paganism. In the present course of lectures 
 an effort is made to introduce an argument founded upon contem- 
 porary evidence as furnished by the results of Christian missions in our 
 own day. We must bear in mind that these results are in a very un- 
 developed stage. Christianity as yet touches the age-incrusted and 
 unyielding surface of heathen society only in spots, and has hardly 
 broken its way through to an extent which enables us to recognize fully 
 its power or to discover its transforming tendencies in the non-Christian 
 world. It is sufficiently apparent, however, that a new force of tran- 
 scendent energy has entered the gateway of the nations and has planted 
 Itself with a quiet persistency and staying power in the very centres of 
 the social life of the people. From its modest haunts of church and 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 school, of hospital and asylum, and through its unostentatious instru- 
 mentalities of hterature, personal example, regenerated home life, and 
 sanctified individual character, it is destined to go forth conquering and 
 to conquer, as a potent regenerator of society and the maker of a new 
 civilization. 
 
 Christianity, by virtue of its own beneficent energy as a transform, 
 ing and elevating power in society, has aheady wrought out a new 
 apologia of missions. No elaborate argument is needed to demonstrate 
 it. The simple facts as revealed in the outcome of mission effort in 
 every field will sufficiently establish it. It may not be in harmony 
 with the current naturalistic theories of social evolution, yet it is 
 the open secret of missionary experience that the humble work of mis- 
 sions is a factor in the social progress of the world which it would be 
 intellectual dishonesty to ignore and philosophic treason to deny. The 
 appeal, however, is not simply to facts, but to principles and tendencies, 
 to the testimony of experience, and, above all, to the promises of the 
 Omnipotent Founder of an Everlasting Kingdom. Mathematical dem- 
 onstration is clearly impossible, as must be said also concerning much 
 of the fundamental truth of the spiritual world. A large measiu-e of 
 faith is essential, and, in view of all the complications and mysteries of 
 the environment, not an unreasonable demand in order to full convic- 
 tion. The faith required, however, is not without a clear warrant and 
 a solid basis in reason, experience, and revelation. Then, again, the 
 conflict is still in progress — in fact, only fairly begun so far as any 
 serious and concerted effort of the Christian Church to prosecute mis- 
 sions is concerned. We are only just awakening to the enormous diffi- 
 culties of the undertaking. Many Goliaths stand in frowning array 
 before this unarmed David of Christian missions. Not a few Eliabs 
 are still found in the armies of Israel, who have many doubts about 
 David's bold venture and give him scant encouragement as he goes 
 forth against his giant foe.i There are those in every land — some in 
 positions of power and influence, who look with more or less incredu- 
 lity on what they regard as a questionable project. Christianity, 
 however, is deathless, and Christian missions at the present moment 
 represent the only promise and potency of spiritual resurrection in the 
 dying world of heathenism. 
 
 Some of the conclusions presented in these lectures touch closely 
 subjects which are just now prominent in current discussion. The 
 comparative study of religion and the theories of social evolution are 
 ^ I Sam. xvii. 28-30. 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 illustrations of this contact, and concerning these the author ventures 
 a word in explanation of his own point of view. 
 
 In considering our theme the social influence of Christianity comes 
 repeatedly into sharp contrast with the social results of the ethnic reli- 
 gions, a subject which is treated at some length in 
 both the third and fourth lectures.i The compari- '^hat is the proper 
 
 ,,.,,. estimate of ethnic 
 
 son has seemed to the writer to be fruitful m re- religions? 
 
 suits which were favorable to the Christian religion, 
 and virtually to substantiate its divine origin, superior wisdom, and 
 moral efficiency. He has been led in the course of these studies to give 
 to Christianity more firmly than ever his final, unreserved, and undivided 
 allegiance as an authoritative and divinely accredited system of truth, 
 full of salutary guidance and uplifting power to humanity. Many things 
 have cooperated in recent years to bring the status of ethnic religions 
 prominently before the minds of men. This fact, as well as the inherent 
 interest of the subject, gives a special timeliness just now to any serious 
 and candid study of this difficult theme. 
 
 That there are plain traces of truth in all the prominent ethnic 
 systems of religion is a fact which is too evident to admit of denial.^ 
 This is manifested in much of their ethical teaching and in their adjust- 
 ment of the duties of human relationships, yet it is just in these respects 
 that some of their most serious failures are observable. It is because 
 the religious basis of their ethics is so defective that the practical out- 
 come is so disappointing. All higher truth which is discoverable in the 
 religious history of the race is either directly or indirectly from God, 
 and so far as it appears in ethnic systems is to be traced to God as its 
 Author. Primitive revelation, with its emphatic restatements, covering 
 many centuries in time and reaching mankind through various direct 
 and indirect instrumentalities, was a mighty and pervading religious 
 force in early history.^ It lingered long and worked deeply in human 
 experience. Truth dies hard — if, indeed, it ever dies. Half-truths, and 
 even corrupted and overshadowed truths, can influence men, although 
 partially and uncertainly, in the direction of a sound religious faith. 
 
 1 See infra, pp. 381-396, 423-449- 
 
 2 Bishop Butler, in his " Analogy," has defined the relation of Christianity to 
 natural religion by designating the former as " a republication and external institu- 
 tion of natural or essential religion adapted to the present circumstances of man- 
 kind," with the further value of presenting " an account of a dispensation of things 
 not discoverable by reason." Cf. "The Works of Joseph Butler, edited by the 
 Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone," vol. i., pp. 185-196. Cf. also vol. ii., pp. 277-279. 
 
 3 See infra, pp. 296-299. 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 Men are made brave and courageous, and often ready for martyrdom, 
 by whole conviction concerning half-truths. The truth sometimes sur- 
 vives and even lives long in an atmosphere of corruption and degeneracy. 
 Again, it will kindle an earnest aspiration for reform, and a new reli- 
 gion appears in history, but likely to be imperfectly furnished and so in 
 alliance with error that it can do little for the spiritual and moral good 
 of mankind. Truth may be "crushed to earth," but it "shall rise 
 again " and live in the heart of humanity, however it may be throttled 
 and supplanted by the god of this world and his brood of lies. God 
 "left not Himself without witness," and has been "not far from every 
 one of us " in all the religious history of man. The " true Light which 
 lighteth every man " has never ceased to shine, however dimly per- 
 ceived. This thought is to the mind of the author the key to the whole 
 situation. Primitive monotheism,^ although based upon revelation, 
 failed to hold the allegiance of the entire race, and a hne of degeneracy 
 has run parallel to the line of enlightenment and moral achievement. 
 Monotheism having been cast aside or deserted, something must take 
 its place in the presence of the awful and mysterious phenomena of 
 nature. It may be pantheism or polytheism or nature worship in its 
 varied forms. Man then devises — not necessarily in any dishonest or 
 insincere spirit — a religion of his own, for himself or his family or his 
 tribe, according to the conception which he forms of his needs and in 
 harmony with his own philosophy of nature. 
 
 The genesis of false religions is, therefore, to be found in the deser- 
 tion and corruption of the true, and in man's urgent but unavaihng 
 struggle after some substitute for what he has forsaken. They are to 
 be traced to treason and surrender in the religious citadel of human his- 
 tory. It is a story of " many inventions " in order to recover what has 
 been lost or forfeited. The non-religious condition even now of many 
 who live in Christendom, resulting from their neglect or rejection of 
 biblical truth, is a suggestive analogue to the status of heathenism in the 
 religious history of the race. Rejected light is the universal epitaph of 
 the buried religious hopes of man. This is far more in accord with the 
 suggestions of reason, the testimony of experience, the lessons of his- 
 tory, and the statements of Scripture than to regard ethnic religions as 
 tentative efforts on the part of God to guide mankind by temporizing 
 compromises, by systems of half-truths, or by mixed dispensations of 
 truth and error— a theory which involves the grave mistake of credit- 
 ing non-Christian religious systems to God as their Author and Founder. 
 
 » Jevons, " Introduction to the History of Religion," pp. 5, 7, 386-397; Orr, 
 " The Christian View of God and the World," pp. 469, 501-504. 
 
PREFACE xui 
 
 This view of the origin of heathen systems is not new ; it is as old as his- 
 tory. It has been regarded, however, of late in some circles as irreconcil- 
 able with the demands of the evolution theory as applied to the religious 
 life of mankind. It cannot fairly be interpreted as necessarily implying 
 indiscriminate condemnation and hopeless abandonment of all adherents 
 and devout disciples of non-Christian religions, since it is God's prov- 
 ince to illumine and guide the souls of men through the agency of the 
 Holy Spirit by any measure of Ught which He chooses to make suffi- 
 cient for His purpose. There is primitive truth lingering in the con- 
 sciousness and in the religious environment of all races. There is the 
 natural conscience, and, above all, there is the free Spirit of God with 
 immediate access to every soul. God is not bound, and His truth, if 
 He wills, can be so brought home to the moral nature of man by the 
 monitions of the Spirit, with or without external means, that the saving 
 act of faith may occur even in a partially instructed soul, for whose 
 benefit the atoning work of Christ may be made available by divine 
 mercy. 
 
 This is not universal salvation for the heathen ; it is, unhappily, the 
 writer fears, merely a possibility, and only such for those faithful souls 
 who are humble, and loyal to light and privilege. The rest shall be 
 judged justly in view of the light, and that alone, which they have 
 sinfully ignored and rejected. The whole world needs; the Gospel, and 
 it is useless to gauge the need by greater or less when all men must be 
 saved, either consciously or unconsciously, by Christ. The urgency lies 
 in leading men to avail themselves of Him, and whether they do it 
 intelligently or blindly will matter little if, in God's sight, it is done. 
 He will judge in each case. His verdict will be both merciful and just. 
 We are to maintain an attitude of kindly and generous sympathy 
 towards those who have less light than is given in the revealed Word. 
 We cannot condone error and we cannot compromise with sin, but we 
 can seek to lead all souls to God and give them the inestimable bene- 
 fits of that sure guidance for which we, ourselves, have reason to be 
 deeply grateful. Let us not fail to discern, however, that these ethnic 
 faiths as we know them in the world at the present time are in their 
 decadence — so advanced in some instances as to have reached the stage 
 of moral gangrene. This fact cannot be ignored, and while all need- 
 less and heated disparagement should be avoided, yet in the end it is 
 wiser and safer — even kinder— to take account of their utter dissever- 
 ance from Christianity and the impossibility of an alliance upon any 
 platform of compromise which does not include the essential features 
 of the Christian system. 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 Concerning the bearing of our theme upon theories of social evolu- 
 tion a word may be in place. The tendency to apply rigidly the law 
 of evolution to the social history of mankind is 
 .up^r'^turai i^ I'irue HOW Strong. In this Comte and Spencer have led 
 theory of thg ^^y, and many students of social science have 
 
 social evolution. ^^jj^^^^ j„ ^j^g judgment of some of these, all 
 
 biblical conceptions of the origin and social development of man must 
 lapse in favor of the popular theory. That evolution as a law of de- 
 velopment—a method or process— has had a large function in moulding 
 the social progress of the race, especially in the lower rather than the 
 higher aspects of its civilization, is not to be questioned ; but that it 
 accounts for everything, and is a sufficient interpretation of what we 
 have been accustomed to consider the supernatural factor in human 
 experience, is difficult to beheve. The gigantic task of Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer has come to a rounded conclusion ; his " Synthetic Philosophy " 
 is before us in its completeness. It is the result of the intellectual 
 throes of many toiUng years. He has given us, however, strictly a 
 utiUtarian system of ethics, a naturahstic theory of sociology, and a 
 rationalistic creed of theology. His high-water mark in rehgion is 
 agnosticism — a philosophy of the Great Unknowable. He is a mighty 
 thinker, a superb and masterly worker ; but this only adds to the dis- 
 appointment which many must feel in contemplating the moral and 
 social significance of the theories which he has wrought out with such 
 a prodigious passion of thought during thirty-six years. 
 
 That there is a weighty element in the problem which Mr. Spencer 
 and his school have virtually ignored, or have consigned to the realm 
 of the Unknowable, is plain to those who believe in biblical concep- 
 tions of man and history. The supernatural in its various aspects, and 
 especially the place of revealed religion in the history of man and the 
 social development of the race, is a factor of great significance in the 
 problem. Man's individual and social history is full of the culture 
 power of a divine religion, and to rule this out of its place of influence 
 and discredit its value is a grave mistake. Yet concerning this factor 
 of supernatural rehgion Mr. Spencer's verdict is "not simply that no 
 hypothesis is sufficient, but that no hypothesis is even thinkable." i 
 The supernatural is not used in this connection in any sense which 
 impUes the sUghtest disparagement of the natural, but simply as indi- 
 cating agencies which are outside the scope and above the limitations 
 of nature. Natural forces, as well as supernatural, are God's instru- 
 ments, and no doubt an immensely preponderating share of His prov- 
 1 " First Principles," p. 47. 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 idential government of the world is through natural rather than 
 supernatural agencies. Where the natural ends and the supernatural 
 begins is at many points an enigma both of science and religion. That 
 the supernatural, however, most assuredly has its place and its mission 
 is the immemorial faith of all who have turned to God's Word for light.i 
 This conclusion by no means discredits the great law that struggle and 
 conflict are the conditions of moral and social, as of all physical, pro- 
 gress. It simply coincides with the divine promise of guidance and 
 help in the stress and strain of the omnipresent strife. 
 
 Have Christian missions any evidence to offer as to the influence 
 of Christianity and the scope of its ministry in lifting society to higher 
 levels? This is perhaps an inconspicuous and somewhat unexpected 
 quarter from which to look for sociological light ; yet is it not, after all, 
 a busy workshop of social reconstruction, where higher intellectual, 
 moral, and spiritual forces are being introduced into the environment 
 of belated civilizations? We cannot regard it as a voice out of the 
 realm of philosophy, nor can we count it a dictum of science, but it 
 may be considered a word of intelligent testimony from those who are 
 laboring to make men better and purify social conditions amid the dis- 
 heartening sorrows and corruptions of non-Christian society. As such 
 it is worthy of a hearing, and its report seems to be decidedly in favor 
 of the potent and transforming power of Christianity in the moral and 
 social reconstruction of both the individual and associate Ufe of man. 
 The idea, often emphasized in these lectures, that Christianity, includ- 
 ing primitive revelation and the Old Testament dispensation, is an 
 involution introduced into the course of human history by the God of 
 Providence for the purpose of promoting individual and social progress, 
 and changing what would otherwise be a downward into an upward 
 evolution, seems to the author to be merely the restatement in modern 
 terms of the unchangeable and ever true doctrine of Redemption. This 
 simply means that in the long struggle of human society toward moral 
 perfection God has contributed a notable — in fact, an indispensable — 
 factor in the gift of an ideal religion. In a book of sociological scope, 
 present-day terminology seems preferable to the stereotyped formulas 
 of theological thought, as more in keeping with the literary and tech- 
 nical aspects of the subject, and perhaps also more in touch with the 
 reader. 
 
 Is it not plain that the Church in its missionary capacity has a re- 
 sponsibility as well as an opportunity which is of transcendent moment 
 
 > Consult infra, pp. 41-43, 455-457- 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 to mankind? The last word has not been said upon this subject; 
 the last survey of the field has not been made ; nor has the final esti- 
 mate been penned of the sublimity, dignity, and 
 
 Christianity needs a far-reaching import of this unrivalled trust. Chris- 
 deeper world-con- . . . , ,j HT J 
 
 sciousness. tianity needs a deeper world-consciousness. Mod- 
 
 em Ufe is developing it. International interchange 
 and sympathy are quickening it. Nations are becoming members one 
 of another. This is a process in which the spirit of Christianity is 
 specially needed as a solvent and stimulus,, and in which its universal 
 mission will be recognized more and more. If this is an "age of 
 doubt " concerning some of the essential truths of the Gospel, it is 
 not surprising that there should be questionings about this supreme 
 venture of missions. If the Gospel itself is not beyond challenge, how 
 can we expect this profound ultimate test of its truth, this latter-day 
 revelation of its import, this prophetic ideal of its final triumph, so 
 dimly outlined in the world-embracing purpose of missions, to be readily 
 accepted? It was Christ alone who was prepared at the consumma- 
 tion of the old dispensation for the sacrifice of the Cross. Let us not 
 be dismayed if only those who believe in Him to the uttermost, and 
 who are in mystic sympathy with the ruling passion of His life and 
 reign, are ready to " follow the gleam " of a world-wide redemption. 
 Missions, after all, are simply the Gospel writ large by the pen of 
 prophecy from the view-point of absolute faith. They are the logical 
 outcome of a universal Gospel and represent a special religious environ- 
 ment created by divine command to give a moulding touch to the 
 moral advance of the race. The entrance of missions into the modem 
 life of ancient peoples is a fact of the highest historic, as well as ethical 
 and religious, significance. They are the herald of a new era of beneficent , 
 progress to the less favored nations of the earth. The social scientist 
 who discounts Christian missions as of no special import is strangely 
 oblivious to a force which has wrought with benign energy and unex- 
 ampled precision in the production of the best civilization we have yet 
 seen in the history of mankind, and whose transforming ministry, let us 
 thank God in the name of humanity, is not yet finished. 
 
 James S. Dennis. 
 
Students' Lectures on Missions 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 Princeton, New Jersey 
 
 February 9-14 
 
 1896 
 
 The Morgan Lectureship 
 (Second Course) 
 
 AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 Auburn, New York 
 
 February 19-27 
 
 1896 
 
 Lectures on Missions 
 
 LANE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio 
 
 March 4-10 
 
 1896 
 
 The Elliott Lectureship 
 
 WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 Allegheny, Pennsylvania 
 
 March 12-18 
 
 1896 
 
GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUMES I, II, AND III 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 LectCKK L The Sociological Scope of Christian Missions. 
 
 Lecture XL The Social Evils of the Non-Christian World. 
 
 Lecture IIIi Ineffectual Remedies and the Causes of their Failure. 
 
 Lecture IV. Christianity the Social Hope of the Nations. 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 Lecture V. The Dawn of a Sociological Era in Missions. 
 
 Lecture VI. The Contribution of Christian Missions to Social Progress. 
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 Lecture VI. The Contribution of Christian Missions to Social Progress. 
 
 (Continued). 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I. Statistical Survey of Foreign Missions throughout the World, in a Series of 
 
 Classified Tables. 
 I. Evangelistic. Statistics of Foreign Missionary Societies and Churches, 
 a. Educational. Statistics of Academic, Medical, and Industrial Instruction. 
 
 3. Literary. Statistics of Bible Translation and General Literature. 
 
 4. Medical. Statistics of Hospitals, Dispensaries, and Patients Treated. 
 
 5. Philanthropic and Reformatory. Statistics of Institutions and So- 
 
 cieties for Relief and Rescue. 
 
 6. Cultural. Statistics of Societies and Associations for General Improvement. 
 
 7. Native Organizations for the Furtherance of National, Social, and Religious 
 
 Reform. 
 
 8. Missionary Training Institutions and Organizations in Christian Lands. 
 II. Directory of Foreign Missionary Societies in all Lands. 
 
 III. Bibliography of Recent Literature of Missions, 
 
 INDICES 
 7 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 rxcK 
 
 The Sociological Scope of Christian Missions 31 
 
 Missions a social as well as a religious ministry, p. 23. — Social results 
 a later and more indirect product than the spiritual, p. 24, — Their sphere 
 ethical and humane rather than economic, p. 25. — The social influence of 
 missions confirmed by history, p. 26. — The larger significance of missions, 
 p. 28. — The divine environment of social evolution, p. 26. — The reconstruc- 
 tive function of Christianity in mission fields, p. 29. — This inquiry pertinent 
 at the present stage of mission progress, p. 30. — Have missions and soci- 
 ology any common ground? p. 31. — The true scope and aim of sociology, 
 p. 32. — The sociological power of the religious environment, p. $$. — Chris- 
 tianity the true social touchstone, p. 34. — Sociology not merely an academic 
 discipline, p. 34. — In what sense may the expression " Christian sociology " 
 be properly used? p. 36. — Christian sociology distinguished from Christian 
 socialism, p. 38.— Sociology in its constructive aspects predominantly ethi- 
 cal, p. 38. — Sociology an inclusive and comprehensive science, p. 39. — Is 
 universal evolution the only postulate of a true sociological system? p. 41. 
 — Christian missions necessarily a militant social force, p. 43. — A majestic 
 power of social transformation inherent in Christ's teachings, p. 45. — The 
 larger vision of God's purpose in missions, p. 47. — The sublimity and com- 
 prehensiveness of their task, p. 47. — The evangelical spirit and aim of mis- 
 sions must not be supplanted by the sociological method, p. 48. — The 
 social outcome of missions a natural and unconscious revelation of their 
 power, p. 50. — Missions stand for social evolution with Christianity in- 
 troduced as a factor, p. 51. — The present variety and breadth in mission 
 methods desirable, p. Ji. — Some a priori arguments in support of this op- 
 timistic view, p. 52.— The argument from solidarity, p. 53. — The argument 
 from analogy based upon the expansive power of material forces, p. 53.— 
 Another argument from analogy based upon the larger scope of moral evil, 
 p. 54.— What the divine legislation of the Old Testament suggests, p. 54. 
 — The argument from historic achievement, p. 55. — World-wide social re- 
 demption the culminating thought of the New Testament, p. 56.— The 
 
 9 
 
10 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 rACB 
 
 expansion of the kingdom the crowning promise of Scriptnre, p. 58.— Mis- 
 sion service is the secret of inspiration and power to the Church, p. 58. 
 Literature and Authorities for Lecture I "<* 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 The Social Evils of the Non-Christian World . . • • 7i 
 The proper spirit of such an Inquiry, p. 73.— Excellencies not to be 
 ignored or minimized, p. 74.— The existence of serious evils in Christen- 
 dom not to be denied, p. 75.— Christian civilization must be tested by its 
 active antagonism to moral evils, p. 75' 
 
 I.— The Individual Group 
 
 (Evils affecting primarily the individual, and secondarily society throagh 
 the individual) 
 
 1. Intemperance. Intemperance in many nations— a comparative survey, 
 
 p. 76. 
 
 2. The Opium Habit. The extent of the opium traffic, p. 80.— The Royal 
 
 Commission on Opium, and its report, p. 82.— British restrictions in 
 Burma, p. 82.— The area of the opium habit, and the evils of its use, p. 83. 
 
 3. The Gambling Habit. The prevalence of gambling in China and through- 
 
 out the world, p. 85. 
 
 4. Immoral Vices. Immorality in Japan, Korea, and China, p. 86. — The 
 
 moral condition of India, p. 89. —The status in Mohammedan lands, and 
 in South America, Africa, and the Pacific Islands, p. 91. 
 
 5. Self-torture. Self-torture in India, China, and Mohammedan lands, p. 92. 
 
 6. Suicide. Self-destruction prevalent in many countries, p. 93. 
 
 7. Idleness and Improvidence. The evils of sloth and improvidence, p. 96. 
 
 8. Excessive Pride and Self-exaltation. Pride and vanity are barriers 
 
 to progress, p. 97. 
 
 9. Moral Delinquencies. The blighting effects of untruthfulness and dis- 
 
 honesty, p. 99. 
 
 II. — The Family Group 
 
 (Evils affecting primarily the family, and secondarily society through the 
 
 family) 
 
 The status and function of the family in ancient classical civilizations, p. 
 102.— Little improvement in the heathen civilizations of to-day, p. 103. 
 The Degradation of Woman. The status of woman outside of Chris> 
 tendom, p. 104.— The signs and tokens of her inferiority, p. 104.— Her 
 deprivations and restrictions, p. 107.— Her indignities and burdens, p. 109. 
 —The result upon her personal character, p. 112.— Some modifications of 
 the dark picture which are to the credit of Eastern womanhood, p. iia. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 11 
 
 Polygamy and Concubinage. The moral dignity of the Christian code 
 
 of marriage, p. 113.— Licensed polygamy a characteristic of ethnic systems, 
 
 p. 114. 
 Adultery and Divorce. Arbitrary power of divorce a conceded right 
 
 in heathen systems, p. 116. 
 Child Marriage and Widowhood. The evils of child marriage, p. 119. 
 
 —Further restrictive legislation concerning infant marriage greatly needed, 
 
 p. 120. —The present status of Indian legislation concerning the remarriage 
 
 of widows, p. 122. — The sorrows of Indian widowhood, p. 123. — The 
 
 abolition of sati, p. 125. 
 Defective Family Training. The training of children in Japan and 
 
 China, p. 126.— In India and Africa, p. 127. 
 Infanticide. Child murder not uncommon in China, p. 129. — Infanticide 
 
 among the Hindus, p. 131. — Has it been entirely checked in India? p. 132. 
 
 —The doom of twins in Africa, p. 134. — Infanticide not common among 
 
 Mohammedans, p. 135. 
 
 III.— The Tribal Group 
 
 (Evils which pertain to intertribal relationships, and find their origin in the 
 cruel passions of savage life) 
 
 The Traffic in Human Flesh. The historical genesis of the slave- 
 trade, p. 135. — The main avenues of the modern slave-trafhc in Africa, p. 
 136. — The slave-markets of the West Coast and its hinterland, p. 137. — 
 The traffic in Morocco and North Africa, p. 140. — A recent report of the 
 slave-traffic on the East Coast, p. 141. — Vigorous restrictions in the Nyas- 
 saland Protectorate, p. 143.— The status in Madagascar, p. 144.— The 
 Kanaka traffic in the Pacific Islands, p. 144. — The coolie-trade in China and 
 India, p. 145. 
 
 Slavery. The passing of slavery in Christendom, p. 146.— Its continuance 
 in many sections of the non-Christian world, p. 147. —Domestic slavery in 
 China, Korea, Siam, and Assam, p. 148. — Servitude for debt in the Native 
 States of India, p. 149.— The status in Afghanistan, p. 149. — The question 
 of slavery in Zanzibar (now abolished), p. 150. 
 
 Cannibalism. Is cannibalism still prevalent among savage races? p. iji. 
 —Cannibal ferocity still untamed in Africa, p. 152.— The West Coast no- 
 torious for cannibal atrocities, p. 154.— Vavdoux worship in the West Indies 
 a relic of West Coast cannibalism, p. 156. 
 
 Human Sacrifices. The prevalence of human sacrifices in the non-Chris- 
 tian world, p. I $7. — The evidence of its existence in Australasia and the 
 South Seas, p. 159. — The horrors of human sacrifice in Africa, p. 160. 
 
 Cruel Ordeals. The trial by ordeal — its severity and cruelty, p. 162.— 
 Ordeals in India, Siam, and Madagascar, p. 163.— Their prevalence in. 
 Africa, p. 164. 
 
 Cruel Punishments and Torture. Methods of punishment in West- 
 ern Asia,, p. 165.— A Chinese Chamber of Horrors, p. 167.— The cruelties 
 of punishment in Africa, p. 169. 
 
 Brutality in War. The barbarities of Oriental warfare, p. 171.— The 
 
12 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 annals of cruelty not yet closed, p. 172.— Sanguinary customs in African 
 warfare, p. 173, 
 
 8. Blood Feuds. The prevalence and bitterness of blood feuds throughout 
 
 the African Continent, p. 174..— Sectional feuds in Turkey, Persia, and 
 India, p. 175.— Village feuds in China, p. 176.— Intertribal fends in the 
 Pacific Islands, p. 177. 
 
 9. Lawlessness. The quieting power of civilized rule in Asia and Africa, p. 
 
 178.— Lawlessness under native rule, p. 179.— Africa the haunt of lawless 
 violence, p. 181. 
 
 IV.— The Social Group 
 
 (Evils which are incidental to the social relationships of uncivilized com- 
 munities, and are due to lack of intelligence or the force of 
 depraved habit) 
 
 1. Ignorance. The social perils and disabilities of ignorance, p. 182. — Ig- 
 
 norance not always synonymous with illiteracy, p. 183. — Enormous per- 
 centage of illiteracy in China, p. 184. — The highly educated ignorance of 
 Chinese officials, p. 186.— Intellectual slumber of the Orient, p. 187. 
 
 2. Quackery. The contribution of quackery to the world's misery, p. 187. — 
 
 The charlatanism of the Chinese doctor, p. 187. — Native specifics in For- 
 mosa, p. 189.— Sovereign remedies in Korea and Tibet, p. igo. — Medical 
 destitution in India, p. 191. — Empirical devices in Burma, Siam, Persia, 
 and Arabia, p. 192.— The terrors of quackery in Africa, p. 193. — The de- 
 moniacal arts of the witch-doctor, p. 194. — Burning remedies and fiery 
 tonics, p. 196.— The sorcerer's art in the Pacific Islands, p. 197. 
 
 3. Witchcraft. The spell of demons in pagan realms, p. 198.— Haunted 
 
 Africa, p. 199.— Witchcraft as a religion, p. 200.— The malign power of 
 obeahism, p. 201.— Soul-hunting in the South Seas, p. 202.— Belief in de- 
 mon possession among Asiatic peoples, p. 203. 
 
 4. Neglect of the Poor and Sick. The compassionate spirit of Christi- 
 
 anity, p. 205.— Philanthropic needs of Japan, p. 205.— Ancient customs 
 in India, p. 207. —The treatment of the sick in China, p. 208. —The pitiless 
 fate of the helpless and suffering, p. 209. 
 
 5. Uncivilized and Cruel Customs. What are the standards of civiliza- 
 
 tion? p. 210.— Some customs which are uncivilized and cruel, p. 211. 
 
 Foot-binding in China, p. 212. — Uncleanly habits, p. 214.— Unseemly 
 nudity, p. 214.— Barbaric toilets, p. 215.— Promiscuous bathing, p. 215. 
 —Loathsome diet, p. 216.— Abominable dances, p. 216.— Tainted asceti- 
 cism, p. 217.— Funeral orgies, p. 217. — Mortuary customs of the Chinese 
 and the Parsis, p. 217.— Burial rites in the South Seas, p. 218. 
 
 6. Insanitary Conditions. The sanitary condition of India, p. 219.— The 
 
 eflforts of the British Government to introduce proper sanitation, p. 221.— 
 Malodorous China, p. 222. 
 
 7. Lack of Public Spirit. The enthronement of selfishness, p. 224.- 
 
 Laissez-faire the social law of China, p. 226. 
 
 8. Mutual Suspicion. Confidence as a social tonic, p. 226. -Every man his 
 
 own detective in China, p. 227. -The distrustful spirit of Oriental society, 
 p. 238. ' 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 13 
 
 9. Poverty. The ceaseless struggle for survival, p. 229.— The genesis of 
 poverty, p. 229. — The social import of poverty, p. 230.— India's recurring 
 misery, p. 231. — The beneficent efforts of the British Government, p. 232. 
 — Chinese poverty and its causes, p. 233.— The su£ferings of the poor in 
 China, p. 235.— Poverty in Korea and Japan, p. 236.— The horrors of 
 African famine, p. 237. 
 
 10. The Tyranny of Custom. An impersonal despot on an invincible 
 
 throne, p. 238.— The mysterious sway of custom, p. 239. — China's homage 
 to established precedent, p. 240. 
 
 11. Caste. Caste versus social distinctions, p. 241. — The origin of caste, and 
 
 its social significance, p. 242. —Its evolution into a social monstrosity, p. 
 243.— The overshadowing mastery of caste regulations, p. 245. — What can 
 be said in its defense? p. 246. — The counts in a great indictment, p. 247. 
 — The ostracism of the Pariahs, p. 248. — Some representative opinions on 
 caste, p. 249. — An indefensible and formidable barrier to social progress, 
 p. 250. — The effort to fix caste disabilities upon native Christians, p. 2$ I . — 
 Milder forms of the caste spirit in other lands, p. 252. 
 
 v.— The National Group 
 (Evils which afflict society through the misuse of the governing power) 
 
 The dignity of the State, and the perils of power, p. 253. 
 
 1. Civil Tyranny. Civil tyranny in Turkey, p. 255.— Methods of extortion 
 
 in China, p. 256. — Civil administration in Korea and Japan, p. 257. — 
 British reforms in India, p. 258. 
 
 2. Oppressive Taxation. Taxation, past and present, in India, p. 260. — 
 
 The science of " squeezing " in China, p. 261. — Official mulcting in Korea, 
 p. 262. — The grinding tyranny of taxation in Turkey and Persia, p. 263. 
 
 3. The Subversion of Legal Rights. The benign mission of law in a 
 
 civilized community, p. 265. — Japan an exception in Oriental history, p. 
 266. — Korea follows the rule of spoliation, p. 266. — Legal rights the sport 
 of ofiicials in China, Turkey, and Persia, p. 266. — Insecurity in Africa, 
 p. 267. 
 
 4. Corruption and Bribery. The characteristic rdle of Chinese officials, 
 
 p. 268. — The enormities of corruption in China, p. 269. — The Maritime 
 Customs Service and its excellent record, p. 271.— Official salary-grabbing 
 in Korea, p. 272.— Bribery at flood-tide in Turkey and Persia, p. 273. 
 
 5. Massacre and Pillage. Extermination as a national policy, p. 275.— 
 
 The Armenian massacres, p. 275.— Blood-thirst in China, India, and]Africa, 
 p. 277. 
 
 VI.— The Commercial Group 
 
 (Evils incidental to low commercial standards or defective industrial 
 
 methods) 
 
 I. Lack of Business Confidence. Commercial distrust in China, p. 279. 
 —The moralities of trade in Japan, p. 280.— Questionable standards in 
 other parts of the world, p. 281. 
 
14 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAOK 
 
 2. Commercial Deceit and Fraud. The Christian ideal of commercial in- 
 
 tegrity, p. 282.— Business trickery in China, p. 283.— The commercial 
 sinuosities of the Japanese, p. 284.— Dearth of commercial integrity in 
 India, Persia, and Turkey, p. 286. 
 
 3. Financial Irregularities. A crucial test to the average Oriental, p. 288. 
 
 —Some remarkable features of Asiatic banking, p. 288.— A prominent 
 fignre in Eastern finance, p. 289. —Currency problems in China, p. 292. 
 
 4. Primitive Industrial Appliances. The fixedness of industrial methods 
 
 in the East, p. 293.— The industrial capabilities of the Orient, p. 294.— 
 The demand for improved facilities of transportation, p. 295. 
 
 Vll.— The Religious Group 
 
 (Evils which deprive society of the moral benefits of a pure religious faith 
 and practice) 
 
 The universality of religion, p. 296.— The fact of a general religions 
 defection, p. 297.— The genesis of ethnic faiths, p. 298.— The social value 
 of true religion, p. 299. 
 
 1. Degrading Conceptions of the Nature and Requirements of 
 
 Religion. The true tests of social value in a religion, p. 300.— Some 
 effects of ancestor-worship on Chinese society, p. 301.— Other illustrations 
 from China, p. 302.— The social influence of Hinduism, p. 303.— Islam 
 and its relation to social morality, p. 305. — The difficulties of social recon- 
 struction in an environment of religious degeneracy, p. 306. 
 
 2. Idolatry. The social degradation of idolatry, p. 307. — Is there a tenable 
 
 apology for idolatry? p. 308.— The spirit of contemporary idolatry, p. 310. 
 — The abiding moral blight of idol-worship, p. 311. 
 
 3. Superstition. The prevalence and power of superstition, p. 312. — Geo- 
 
 mancy and demonology among the Chinese, p. 313. — Japanese occultism, 
 p. 314. — Korea the haunt of spectres, p. 315. — India and the reign of the 
 mantra, p. 316. — The "Arabian Nights" up to date, p. 318. — Demon- 
 ridden islands, p. 318. — Superstition a social calamity, p. 319. 
 
 4. Religious Tyranny and Persecution.— The genesis of persecution, 
 
 p. 319.— Christianity rightly interpreted not persecuting in its spirit, p. 320. 
 —Religious absolutism the prevailing temper of the Orient, p. 321. — The 
 sceptre of caste in India, p. 322.— The perils of Chinese Christians,^. 323. 
 The passing of persecution in Japan, p. 324. —The martyrdoms of Uganda 
 and Madagascar, p. 324.— Outbursts of intolerance in South America and 
 Mexico, p. 325. 
 
 J. Scandalous Lives of Religious Leaders. The import of the theme, 
 p. 325.— Morals of the priesthood in Japan, p. 326. —The Japanese Govern- 
 ment gives an official warning, p. 328.— Character of religions leaders in 
 China, p. 329. —The moral standing of the Hindu priesthood, p. 331. —The 
 priest, the guru, the mohunt, and the fakir, p. 332.— The secrets of Bud- 
 dhist monasteries in Ceylon, p. 334.— The imam, the mufti, the iadi, the 
 mullah, and the dervish, p. 335.— Religious guides in South America, 
 Central America, and Mexico, p. 337. 
 
 Literature and Authorities for Lecture II 340 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 15 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 PACE 
 
 Ineffectual Remedies and the Causes of their Failure , . 353 
 Christianity the " still, small voice" of hnman history, p. 355.— The 
 question stated, p. 356. 
 I. Is the secret of social regeneration in education alone? p. 357.— Is the evi- 
 dence from Japan, China, and India convincing? p. 358. — Some interesting 
 testimony from Christendom, p. 361. 
 II, Is there a guarantee of social regeneration in material civilization? p. 362. 
 
 — Can the ethnic religions coalesce with Christian civilization? p. 362 
 
 The status of man in Oriental civilizations, p. 364. — Social reform implies 
 a change in the spirit of Asiatic empires, rather than in their material civiliza^ 
 tions, p. 365. — Is civilization divorced from Christianity a panacea in Af- 
 rica? p. 366. — Is there hope in the advent of commerce? p. 367. — Will 
 outside covering secure inside cleansing? p. 368. — The cry, " Civilization 
 first and Christianity afterwards," a false watchword, p. 368. 
 
 III. Wherein State legislation fails, p. 370. — Where reform attends colonial 
 administration its spirit is Christian, p. 371. — Illustrations of the failure of 
 purely legislative pressure, p. 372. — The historic dignity of the ' ' Pax Bri- 
 tannica " in the development of India, p. 373. 
 ] IV. Is patriotism a safe watchword of social reform? p. 375. — The temper 
 and trend of patriotism in India, p. 376. 
 V. The social value of ethnic religions, p. 377. — Oriental character put in 
 evidence, p. 378. — Its brighter aspects and possibilities, p. 380. — A study 
 of the social tendencies of Eastern religions, p. 381. — Buddhism and its 
 social forces, p. 381. — The contribution of Buddhism to society is a para- 
 lyzed personality, p. 382. — Confucianism and its social r61e, p. 383. — The 
 contribntion of Confucianism to society is an impoverished personality, p. 
 386.— Hinduism and its social record, p. 387.— The contribution of Hin- 
 duism to society is a degraded personality, p. 388.— Islam and its social 
 failure, p. 389. — The contribution of Islam to society is an enslaved per- 
 sonality, p. 391. — Is there in Shintoism the making of a renewed society? 
 p. 392. — Has Taoism the secret of social progress? p. 392. — Is there a 
 social gospel in Jainism? p. 392.— Can we hope that Parsism is equal to 
 the task? p. 393. — The universal verdict of history as to the social outcome 
 of all non-Christian religions, p. 394. —Christianity God's best gift to 
 human society, p. 395. — Paul's diagnosis of heathenism still true, p. 395. — 
 The watchword of missions is Christianity, both for the individual and for 
 society, p. 396. 
 
 Literature and Authorities for Lecture III. .... 397 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 Christianity the Social Hope of the Nations .... 403 
 
 A supernatural remedy needed, p. 40J.— Religion the saving force in 
 history, p. 406. — The determining moral factor in a Christian philosophy 
 of progress, p. 407.— Christianity's endowment of power, p. 408. 
 
16 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 I. Christianity alone has solved the difficulties of sin, p. 409.— Conscious 
 guilt among non-Christian races, p. 410.— Hindu methods of expiation, 
 p. 411.— The Gospel has lost none of its potency, p. 412.— It brings not 
 only pardon, but imparts power, p. 412.— Some representative facts gath- 
 ered from recent reports, p. 413. 
 II. The supremacy of the Christian motive, p. 417- -A master motive in morals 
 the great need of the world, p. 41 ?• 
 
 III. The Christian versus the non-Christian estimate of man, p. 419.— The 
 pagan conception still lingers in Oriental tradition, p. 419. —Heathen state- 
 craft still clings to its absolutism, p. 421.— An inadequate conception of bro- 
 therhood, p. 422. —Meagre philanthropic results of heathen systems, p. 422. 
 
 IV. The true criteria of value in ethical systems, p. 423.— The importance of 
 the ethical element in religions, p. 424. —How can the value of an ethical 
 system be verified? p. 425. —The scope and purpose of the present discus- 
 sion, p. 426.— The ethics of Buddhism— some introductory remarks, 
 p. 436.— Some distinctions to be noted, p. 428.— The pessimistic basis of 
 Buddhism, p. 429.— The secret of its wide extension, p. 429. — Its defects 
 as a religious system, p. 430. — The specifications of its ethical code, 
 p. 431.— The status of the Buddhist laity as contrasted with that of the 
 higher orders, p. 432.— Some characteristics to be specially noted, p. 433. 
 —What is the Buddhist victory? p. 434. —The mystery of Nirvana, p. 434. 
 —The crown of the Arahat, p. 436.— Moral confusion in Buddhist ethical 
 precepts, p. 437. — The absence of a noble motive, p. 437. — Wherein 
 Buddhist ethics have failed, p. 437. — Why Christian ethics must supplaat 
 the Buddhist code if there is to be social progress, p. 439. — The ethics of 
 Confucianism, p. 439. — The Confucian view of the moral status of man, 
 p. 440. — Some social fruits of Confucian ethics, p. 441. — The ethics of 
 Hinduism, p. 443. — The Hindu regulates his own standard, p. 444. — Some 
 grave defects in Hindu ethics, p. 445. —The strength and the weakness of 
 Islam, p. 446. — Half-truths and ethical compromises of the Moslem re- 
 ligion, p. 446. — Islamic ethics far below the danger point, p. 447. — The 
 nobility of Christian ethics, p. 448. 
 V.Christianity introduces new moral forces into mission lands, p. 450. — It 
 carries with it the law of missionary service, p. 452. 
 
 VI. Christianity a stimulus to philanthropy, p. 452.- Illustrations from the 
 field, p. 453. — Missions entitled to a place among civilizing agencies, 
 P- 454- 
 
 VII. Is historic Christianity equal to the task which has been outlined? 
 P- 4S5-— -The supernaturalism of Christianity is the secret of its power, 
 p. 455.— A sufficient basis for faith in the Christian system, p. 456.- His- 
 toric Christianity defined, p. 457.— Why is historic Christianity distrusted 
 as a social power? p. 458.— Are the criticisms of social extremists justified? 
 p. 458.— Must Christianity compromise with the ethnic faiths? p. 460.— 
 Shall Christianity be regarded as the outgrowth of other religious systems? 
 p. 460.— The unique and exclusive glory of Christianity as a religious sys- 
 tem, p. 461 — Two general tendencies in the religious history of mankind, 
 p. 462.— Echoes of the early conflicts of Christianity, p. 463.— Universal 
 mastery the final heritage of Christ and His religion, p. 463. 
 
 LlTBRATURK AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE IV 465 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 (To the many fiiends who have generously aided the author by the gift or loan of photographs for 
 use as illusttations'he desires to render cordial thanks. He is under special obligations to Mr. William 
 Henry Grant, Miss M. E. Garrett, the Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, Mr. Heli Chatelain, Mr. L. D. Wish- 
 ard, the Rev. Dr. W. S. Langfoid, and the Secretaries of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society 
 of New York ; to the Rev. Dr. E. E. Strong, and the Woman's Board of Missions (Congregational) 
 of Boston ; to the Rev. Walter J. Yates of Rockville, Conn. , and the Rev. Frank S. Dobbins of Phila- 
 delphia, Pa. His best thanks axe due also to Dr. George Smith, Secretary of the Free Church of 
 Scotland Missions ; to J. T. Maclagan, Esq., Secretary of the Church of Scotland Missions, and 
 Mr. James Reid of Blantyre, British Central Africa; to Mr. C. J. Viner of the Universities' Mission 
 to Central Africa; to the Secretaries of the Church Missionary Society; to Wellesley C. Bailey, Esq., 
 of the Mission to Lepers, and Miss R. B. Braithwaite of the Women's Anti-Opium Urgency Committee 
 of London. Some of the most interesting pictures have been received from friends in the mission 
 fields, among whom he would name in the present connection Prof. Alexander Thomson of CalcutU, 
 Mr. David McConaughy of Madras, the Rev. F. E. Hoskins of Syria, and Miss Annie L. Howe of 
 Kobe, Japan. Other courtesies will be noted in the subsequent volume.) 
 
 Madras Christian College, India Frontispiece 
 
 Facingpage 
 
 Group of Professors and Class of Students, Madras Christian College, India. . 28 
 
 Robert College, Constantinople 34 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, General View of Campus 38 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Main Building and Interior of Library 42 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Assembly Hall, Exterior and Interior 46 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Preparatory Department, Observatory, Medical 
 
 Building 4^ 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Laboratories and 
 
 Surgical Museum 5^ 
 
 Duff College and Group of Students, Calcutta, India 54 
 
 Four College Presidents— Principals Miller and Hector, Presidents Bliss 
 
 and Washburn 5° 
 
 Opium-Smoking in China ^ 
 
 School for the Blind, Canton, China 88 
 
 Hook-Swinging in India • • 9^ 
 
 »r 
 
18 UST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A Mendicant Priest, China 9* 
 
 Home for Zenana Workers, Cawnpore, India 9° 
 
 An Object-Lesson in Christianized Womanhood '"4 
 
 The Society of Christian Women, Kobe, Japan '°8 
 
 Christian Homes in the Orient "4 
 
 Child Marriage versus Christian Culture **° 
 
 A Kindergarten Page from Japan '*" 
 
 A Children's Refuge in Singapore '3° 
 
 What Missions Do for the Children in Africa '34 
 
 Some Victims of the Slave-Trade '4» 
 
 Christian Training to the Rescue '4^ 
 
 " Fishers "—not Eaters— " of Men " IS^ 
 
 Taming and Beautifying the African 15^ 
 
 New Scenes and Faces on the Congo • l6l 
 
 Peaceful Victories in Africa 173 
 
 Christian Martyrdom in China l8o 
 
 Christian Ministry to Lepers 184 
 
 Christian Missions Abolishing Quackery I90 
 
 Footprints of African Missions— Historic Scenes zoo 
 
 The Kyoto Training-School for Nurses 308 
 
 Footbinding in China 212 
 
 Gronpsof Aboriginal Santals, Bengal, India.... 220 
 
 Scenes in India 232 
 
 The Girls' School, Dehra Dun, India 244 
 
 Christian Endeavor Society, Dehra Dun Girls' School, India 348 
 
 The Indian National Congress 260 
 
 American College for Girls, Scutari, Constantinople 275 
 
 Wards of American Missions in Turkey and Persia 277 
 
 American Educational Work in Turkey 287 
 
 American Educational Work in Turkey 293 
 
 Moslem Pilgrims at Mecca 305 
 
 A Study in Idols 311 
 
 A Micronesian Pastor and His Family 324 
 
 Types of Indian Devotees 331 
 
 The University of Bombay, India, a Government Educational Institution 360 
 
 Two Missionary Colleges in India 371 
 
 Christian Work among Indian Students, New Bnilding, Students' Branch, 
 
 Y. M. C. A., Calcutta 375 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association Buildings, Tokyo, Ji^an, and Madras, India 380 
 Laying the Corner Stone of the New Y. M. C. A. Building, Madras, January 
 
 »9. '897 388 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 19 
 
 Facingpage 
 
 Indian Y.'M. C. A. Convention, Madras, 1894 391 
 
 A Group of Missionary Bishops — Church Missionary Society 394, 
 
 Educational Efforts in South America 412 
 
 A New Era of Education for Mexican Girls 418 
 
 The Medical Staff of the Woman's Board of Missions (Congregational) 423 
 
 Serampore College, Bengal ; College Square, Calcutta » 433 
 
 Some First Contributions of Missions to India 437 
 
 Christian Endeavor Convention in China (Shanghai) 443 
 
 A Happier Day for Woman in Persia 447 
 
 Lovedale Institution, South Africa, Classes in Industrial Department 451 
 
 Lovedale Institution, South Africa, Classes in Industrial Department 455 
 
 The Blantyre Church, British Central Africa (Church of Scotland Mission) . . 459 
 
 ABBREVIATIONS OF MISSIONARY SOCIETIES USED IN 
 VOLUME I 
 
 A. B. C. F. M. American Board of Com- 
 missioners for Foreign Missions. 
 
 A. B. M. U. American Baptist Mission- 
 ary Union. 
 
 A. B. S. American Bible Society. 
 
 C. I. M. China Inland Mission. 
 
 C. M. S. Church Missionary Society. 
 (Eng.) 
 
 C. F. M. Canadian Presbyterian Mis- 
 sion. 
 
 C. S. M. Church of Scotland Mission. 
 
 E. B. M. S. English Baptist Missionary 
 Society. 
 
 E. M. M. S. Edinburgh Medical Mis- 
 sionary Society. 
 
 F. C. S. Free Church of Scotland. 
 
 L. M. S. London Missionary Society. 
 
 Luth. G. S. Lutheran General Synod. 
 (U.S.A.) 
 
 M. £. M. S. Methodist Episcopal Mis- 
 sionary Society. (U.S. A.) 
 
 M. L. Mission to Lepers. 
 
 N. A. M. North African Mission. 
 (Eng.) 
 
 P. B. F. M. N. Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions, North. (U. S. A.) 
 
 P. B. F. M. S. Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions, South. (U. S. A.) 
 
 P. E. M. S. Protestant Episcopal Mis- 
 sionary Society. (U. S. A.) 
 
 Ref. C. A. Reformed Church in Ameri- 
 ca. (Dutch.) 
 
 S. P. G. Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel. (Eng.) 
 
 U. M. C. A. Universities' Mission to 
 Central Africa. (Eng.) 
 
 U. M. F. M. S. United Methodist Free 
 Churches Missionary Society. (Eng. ) 
 
 U. P. C. S. M. United Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland Foreign Mission 
 Board. 
 
 W. C. M. M. S. Welsh Calvinistic Meth- 
 odist Foreign Missionary Society. 
 (Eng.) 
 
 W. M. S. Wesleyan Missionary Society. 
 (Eng.) 
 
 W. U. M. S. Woman's Union Mission- 
 ary Society. (U. S. A.) 
 
 Y. M. C. A. Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation. 
 
 Y. P. S. C. E. Young People's Society 
 of Christian Endeavor. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE I 
 
 The lecture is a study of the social influence and humanitarian scope of missions, 
 with a view to emphasizing their power as a sociological factor in the non-Christian 
 world. The evangelistic results have always been prominent, and need no accentua- 
 tion ; but in order to a fully rounded survey of the potentialities of missions as a 
 factor in social regeneration, we must measure their possibilities as a reconstructive 
 force. The subject is introduced with some preliminary remarks bearing upon the 
 following points : (l) The social influence of missions affects the ethical and humane 
 rather than the economic status of society. (2) The testimony of history to the 
 social power of Christianity has always been emphasized in apologetic literature. 
 (3) The fact that this deeper and broader view of the indirect results of missions has 
 been very imperfectly recognized. (4) The special timeliness of this theme in the 
 present horoscope of missions. 
 
 The relations of Christian missions to sociology are discussed, and an important 
 place claimed for them as a factor in social progress. The sociological power of the 
 religious environment is insisted upon, and the broader view of sociology as a phi- 
 losophy and an art, as well as an exact science, is advocated. Sociology is a study 
 of the history and laws of social groupings, but it includes also philosophic ideals 
 and » practical ministry to the higher welfare of society. It is constructive and 
 utilitarian in its larger scope and wider influence. Like theology, medicine, law, 
 and political economy, it cannot be restricted in its applied aspects to a scholastic 
 discipline. 
 
 The question whether universal evolution in its rigid and exclusive sense is the 
 only postulate of a true sociological system is considered, and a place is claimed for 
 the supernatural as an essential factor of the divine training and government of the 
 race. The function of Christian missions as a power divinely ordered and introduced 
 into the history of belated civilizations with a distinct purpose of giving impulse and 
 direction to social changes is discussed in several of its aspects. The contention that 
 Christianity is a religious and ethical environment which is conducive to the develop- 
 ment of the highest type of moral character is supported and emphasized. The 
 dignity of the evangelistic aspects of missions is maintained as in no way affected by 
 this larger view of mission possibilities. 
 
 Some a priori arguments are advanced in support of this optimistic outlook, based 
 upon analogy, history, and the prophetic import of Scripture. 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 
 
 21 
 
" Roman belief in right and law had ended in scepticism, whether there was 
 such a thing as goodness and virtue ; Roman public spirit had given place, under 
 the disheartening impression of continual mistakes and disappointments, to a selfish 
 indifference to public scandals and public mischiefs. The great principles of human 
 action were hopelessly confused; enthusiasm for them was dead. . . . But over 
 this dreary waste of helplessness and despondency, over these mud-banks and shal- 
 lows, the tide was coming in and mounting. Slowly, variably, in imperceptible 
 pulsations or in strange, wild rushes, the great wave was flowing. There had come 
 into the world an enthusiasm, popular, widespread, serious, of a new kind ; not for 
 conquest or knowledge or riches, but for real, solid goodness. . . . 
 
 " This second springtide of the world, this fresh start of mankind in the career 
 of their eventful destiny, was the beginning of many things ; but what I observe on 
 now is that it was the beginning of new chances, new impulses, and new guarantees 
 for civilized life, in the truest and worthiest sense of the words. It was this by 
 bringing society a morality which was serious and powerful, and a morality which 
 would wear and last — one which could stand the shocks of human passion, the deso- 
 lating spectacle of successful wickedness, the insidious waste of unconscious degen- 
 eracy—one which could go back to its sacred springs, and repair its fire and its 
 strength. Such a morality, as Roman greatness was passing away, took possession 
 of the ground. Its beginnings were scarcely felt, scarcely known of, in the vast 
 movement of affairs in the greatest of empires. By and by its presence, strangely 
 austere, strangely gentle, strangely tender, strangely inflexible, began to be noticed ; 
 but its work was long only a work of indirect preparation. Those whom it charmed, 
 those whom it opposed, those whom it tamed, knew not what was being done for 
 the generations which were to follow them. They knew not, while they heard of 
 the household of God and the universal brotherhood of man, that the most ancient 
 and most familiar institution of their society, one without which they could not con- 
 ceive its going on— slavery— was receiving the fatal wound of which, though late, 
 too late, it was at last to die. They knew not, when they were touched by the new 
 teaching about forgiveness and mercy, that a new value was being insensibly set on 
 human life, new care and sympathy planted in society for human suffering, a new 
 horror awakened at human bloodshed. They knew not, while they looked on men 
 dying, not for glory or even country, but for convictions and an invisible truth, that 
 a new idea was springing up of the sacredness of conscience, a new reverence begin- 
 ning for veracity and faithfulness. They knew not that a new measure was being 
 established of the comparative value of riches and all earthly things. . . . They 
 knew not of the great foundations laid for public duty and public spirit. . . . They 
 little thought of what was in store for civil and secular society, as they beheld a 
 number of humble men, many of them foreigners, plying their novel trade of 
 preachers and missionaries. . . . Slowly, obscurely, imperfectly, most imperfectly, 
 these seeds of blessing for society began to ripen, to take shape, to gain power. 
 The time was still dark and wintry and tempestuous, and the night was long in 
 going. It is hard even now to discern there the promise of what our eyes have 
 seen. I suppose it was impossible then." Dean Church. 
 
 •*a 
 
LECTURE I 
 * 
 
 THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN 
 .MISSIONS 
 
 Christian missions, according to every fair and proper criterion, 
 have long since fully vindicated their claim to be ranked as a religious 
 force in the world. Are they also a humanizing 
 ministry? They touch and transform individual Missions a social as 
 
 , , , - . . well as a religious 
 
 hves. Do they also reach and influence society ministry, 
 
 as a whole? They are the makers of new men 
 with purified and ennobled characters, and they give birth to new 
 ecclesiastical institutions. Do they also implant a new spirit and give 
 a better tone to society, resulting in changed conditions, higher ideals 
 of life, and remedial measures which are indicative of a new era in 
 non-Christian nations? We know that they teach a new religion of 
 the heart. Do they also advocate and seek to establish a more refined 
 moral code for the domestic, social, commercial, philanthropic, and 
 even national life of mankind? 
 
 It has been the custom hitherto, on the part of many devout minds, 
 to regard missions as exclusively a religious crusade, with a strictly 
 evangelistic aim ; but observant students of the Christian progress of 
 the world are persuaded that they discover a larger scope and a more 
 comprehensive meaning in this great epochal movement, which has 
 developed to such magnificent proportions in our present century. 
 The evangelistic aim is still first, as it ever will be, and unimpeachable 
 in its import and dignity ; but a new significance has been given to 
 missions as a factor in the social regeneration of the world. They 
 begin to appear in the somewhat unexpected r61e of a sociological 
 force, with a beneficent trend in the direction of elevating human 
 society, modifying traditional evils, and introducing reformatory ideals. 
 
 23 
 
24 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 It cannot be said that this is indeed a new conception of their import 
 when we consider the historic relation of Christianity to human pro- 
 gress ; yet it comes to many of us with a certain freshness, simply be- 
 cause its identification with the scope and purpose of modem naissions 
 has been allowed to lapse to an unwarrantable extent. 
 
 It is natural that this aspect should appear later, and progress more 
 
 slowly than evangelism. It is not in reality the first and inspiring purpose 
 
 of missions which have been instituted primarily in 
 
 ^andLTe "ndtr«r obediencc to the commands to " go . . . teach all 
 
 product than the nations," and " go . . . preach the gospel to every 
 spiritual. creature." Social results are rather of a secondary 
 
 and indirect character, and are conditioned upon a measure of success 
 in the transformation of individual lives, and their visible organization 
 in institutions representative of Christian principles. Such results are 
 not apt to appear so conspicuously and promptly that they take prece- 
 dence of the more spiritual fruits of mission effort. They follow in the 
 train of Christian missions, and come to the front with more difficulty 
 and with a less pronounced manifestation than attends individual con- 
 version. The lifting up of Christian standards and the gentle coercion 
 of Christian ideals in the face of the reigning spirit and traditional 
 customs of ancient society must at first necessarily eUcit prompt ob- 
 structionism and arouse some resentment. If Christian teachings are 
 to be applied to the reconstruction of society in non-Christian lands, 
 they must contend with the mighty forces of heredity, physical, intel- 
 lectual, and moral. They must rudely disturb the hitherto undisputed 
 supremacy of the individual, domestic, social, and national environ- 
 ment. They must cross the path of many prevailing customs, and 
 even, in some cases, of religious conviction and practice. They must 
 bid defiance, in many instances, to public sentiment, and condemn 
 lapsed standards and evil customs which pass unchallenged because 
 of their familiar and commonplace character. They must enter into 
 conflict with undisciphned natures, given over to darling sins, demor- 
 ahzed by evil habits, defective in will power, and blighted by ignorance. 
 The social conflicts of Christian missions must therefore be fought at 
 an enormous disadvantage against overwhelming odds, while their 
 victories in this sphere must come gradually and with httle visible 
 ^clat. 
 
 There are some features of this sociological scope of missions which 
 demand at the outset a word of comment. It should be noted, in the 
 first place, that missions as a social force in the non-Christian world deal 
 with the ethical and humane aspects of society, and with primitive rather 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 25 
 
 than with modern economic problems. They come in contact with what 
 may be called, judged by the standards of modern civilization, initial 
 phases of social development, and deal at once with 
 fundamental questions of social morality. They Their sphere ethical 
 
 . . , „ . • 1 I- ^1 ■ . .. ■ .J '"•'' humane rather 
 
 bnng the first principles of Chnsdanity, in its ap- than economic, 
 plication to the associate life of man, to bear at 
 points where moral principle is at stake. They impinge upon social 
 customs where they are in conflict with the ethical standards of God's 
 Word. They seek to introduce new ideas where the old are incom- 
 patible with Christ's teaching. Their sphere of activity is in that funda- 
 mental realm of morals where at vital points civilization is differentiated 
 from barbarism, where the simplest principles of right and wrong be- 
 come the bases either of a just and orderly social system, or its opposite. 
 Some of the present problems which are to the front in Christendom are 
 hardly recognized in the environment of heathenism. The economic 
 questions, so perplexing and so threatening in our own social system, 
 arising out of the relation of capital to labor, the mutual obligations of 
 employer and employed, the unequal distribution of wealth, the relation 
 of the classes to the masses, and of the Church to society as a whole, 
 have hardly appeared as yet in the non-Christian world, at least in 
 those aspects of them with which we are familiar. The remarkable 
 industrial and economic development of such a country as Japan in- 
 dicates, however, that they may come to the front much sooner than 
 we anticipate. The socialistic, communistic, and anarchical movements 
 also, which have become so prominent within the bounds of modem 
 civilization, have not become identified to any extent with the social 
 experience of mission lands. 
 
 A still further emphasis may be given to the ethical character of 
 the social changes which missions are accomplishing by noting that it 
 is not their function to impose Western civilization in its material, secu- 
 lar, external, and what might be called its aesthetic aspects upon East- , 
 em communities, but rather to infuse the universal spirit and tone of 
 Christian principles into existing social arrangements with the least 
 possible disturbance to estabUshed institutions and customs. If these 
 are an offense to Christian morals, and are at variance with the spirit 
 of the Christian religion, then the social influence of missions is bound 
 to make itself felt in a somewhat aggressive, or at least deprecating, 
 attitude. Great tact and wisdom, large charity, much patience and 
 good sense are necessary, however, to avoid carrying the social man- 
 dates of Christianity too far. Its influence should never be invoked in 
 a way to denationalize native races and interfere unnecessarily with 
 
26 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 social environment, where in its spirit and practice the traditional code 
 does not conflict with Christian teachings. Customs which are of acknow- 
 ledged value and propriety in the West may not be desirable in the more 
 primitive East, and so the standards which prevail within the precincts 
 of Western society may prove not only unnecessary, but, in some cases, 
 burdensome and ridiculous in the simpler Hfe of undeveloped races. 
 
 In the second place, it should be noted that this view of mis- 
 sions is historic* It dates back to the experience of the early cen- 
 turies. The testimony of history sustains and 
 The social influence of enforces it. Christianity has always had a so- 
 
 missions confirmed by , , , . , , , . , . ^ i t._ n- 
 
 history. cial mission of the highest import.^ Its effect 
 
 upon the society of the Roman Empire was one 
 of the torning-points in the progress of the race. The whole outcome 
 of Christian missions in the past is the Occidental Christendom of 
 the present, and we have the best of reasons to believe that the 
 outcome of Christian missions in the present will be the larger, 
 even the world-wide, Christendom of the future. In the last anal- 
 ysis, the Christianizing of modem life may be traced to the mis- 
 sionary efforts of past centuries.^ Civilization is a relative term, 
 and may vary in its significance at different stages of history. There 
 was a civilization in the heathen world when Christianity was founded, 
 but it was heathen civilization. The missions of apostolic and post- 
 apostolic times put the spirit of Christianity into the old Grecian, 
 Roman, and Oriental civilizations, and grafted moral forces into .the 
 political, commercial, intellectual, aesthetic, and social life of the west- 
 ward-moving empires.^ The result is what we call Christian civiliza- 
 tion. In its controlling spirit, its moral standards, and its ultimate 
 ideals, it is the product of Christian teaching applied to the social life 
 of man.* It is distinguished from non-Christian civilization not simply 
 
 1 Storrs, " The Divine Origin of Christianity Indicated by its Historical Effects,'' 
 Lecture V. 
 
 2 Dean Church, " The Gifts of Civilization," pp. 155-249. 
 5 Ibid., pp. 129-151. 
 
 * " Yet the Church has a side turned toward all these other matters, especially 
 to all efforts for the social good and bettering of mankind, and cannot but interest 
 herself in these efforts, and lend what aid to them she can. She has her protest to 
 utter against social injustice and immorality j her witness to bear to the principles 
 of conduct which ought to guide individuals and nations in the various departments 
 of their existence ; her help to bring to the solution of the questions which spring 
 Bp in connection with capital and labor, rich and poor, rulers and subjects ; her 
 influence to throw into the scale on behalf of ' whatsoever things are true, whatso- 
 ever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OP CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 27 
 
 by its material features, but by its moral and spiritual tone. It is not 
 railroads in distinction from Roman highways, or mails at the rate of 
 fifty miles an hour instead of human messengers, or telegrams in place 
 of signals, or the printed page rather than the written manuscript, or 
 Gatling guns in lieu of battering-rams, which differentiate the new 
 civilization from the old; it is rather the spirit which dominates the 
 age, the tone which pervades life, the moral quaUty of aspirations, the 
 ultimate tendencies of social transformations, and the spiritual ideals of 
 progress and reform, which give the Christian character to civilization. 
 If this is true, the social influence of Christianity is of the highest 
 import and value in the realization of these ideals. 
 
 The objection may occur to some minds that Christianity, in view 
 of its internal divisions and antagonisms, is credited with a more direct 
 and influential efficiency than it deserves, in assigning to it so promi- 
 nent a part in the creation of modem Christendom. This objection, 
 however, loses its force when we consider that the divisions, of the 
 Christian Church have arisen in the domain of doctrine rather than of 
 practical Christianity. The evangelical churches especially have always 
 been in sufficient agreement in matters of practice and duty to present 
 a substantially solid front in the presence of adverse social tendencies. 
 There has been little dispute among them about the Ten Command- 
 ments, little diversity of opinion about the common moralities of life 
 and the essential principles of every-day Christian living. There have 
 been no noticeable schisms in evangelical circles with reference to the 
 ideas of brotherhood, marriage, the common rights of humanity, the 
 ethics of the Gospel, the elements of Christian character, or the obliga- 
 tions of philanthropy. There has been little real divergence of convic- 
 tion or of practice in the realm of practical righteousness. Christianity, 
 then, has accomplished its social mission with singleness of aim, and 
 has impressed its ethical principles with substantial unity of purpose 
 upon all ±e Christian centuries. 
 
 The third point to be noted is that the function of Christian missions 
 
 whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ' (Phil. iv. 8). 
 A wholesome tone in literature, a Christian spirit in art and science, a healthy tem- 
 per in amusements, wise and beneficent legislation on Christian principles in the 
 councils of the nation, the spirit of long-suffering, peace, forbearance, and gener- 
 osity brought into the relations of men with one another in society. Christian ideals 
 in the relations of nations to one another, self-sacrificing labors for the amelioration 
 and elevation of the condition of the masses of the people— these are matters in 
 which the Church can never but be interested. Else she foregoes her calling, and 
 may speedily expect to be removed out of her place."— Orx, " The Chri.stian View 
 of God and the World," p. 410. 
 
38 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in the social progress of the world has far more scope and significance 
 than we have been accustomed to associate with it. As there is invari- 
 ably a background of divine environment to truth 
 The larger significance which is far more extensive than the immediate fore- 
 of missions. ground upon which we are permitted to look, so 
 
 there is sure to be an expansiveness of scope and 
 a largeness of purpose in God's providential plans, of which we have 
 little consciousness in our present apprehension of them. We see, for 
 instance, that foreground of revealed truth which comes within our 
 intellectual vision ; but the mind fails to measure the immensity of the 
 background, as it stretches away in dim perspective into the mysterious 
 eternity of divine thought. So we see the leading and nearer outlines 
 of the providential workings of God ; but the full scope and signifi- 
 cance of the divine purpose is too large for us to grasp except dimly 
 and partially. Even a mighty exercise of faith in the power of the 
 Almighty and the grandeur of His purposes can give us but a very 
 imperfect conception of what the reality will be. The ideals which lie 
 hidden in God's thoughts are to be revealed to us only as the reward 
 of long endeavor, and the fruition of heroic service. 
 
 It is also worthy of note in this connection that the social evolution, 
 
 over which Providence presides, and in which Christian missions have a 
 
 decisive part to play, is a broad and varied stream 
 
 The divine environ- pf influence. It is true that the most important, in 
 
 tion. fact the fundamental, working factor in it all is the 
 
 living Gospel planted in the individual heart.^ This 
 
 is the supreme moral force which is brought to bear in social progress ; 
 
 but it is fair to say that religion is not the only instrumentality which 
 
 God uses for the advancement of society. There are agencies, more 
 
 or less secular in their character, which are subsidized by Providence in 
 
 cooperation with religion, and which produce a rounded development in 
 
 the direction of higher things. God, who presides over all evolution, 
 
 1 " For as Christians we hold, and all experience goes to confirm our conviction, 
 that we are not set on earth to contemplate passively an evolution wrought out about 
 us and in us, but to be soldiers on a battle-field, charged to prepare'and hasten the 
 coming of the Lord. Further knowledge of the conditions by which our action is 
 limited does not lessen the claims of duty, but tends to guide us to more fruitful 
 endeavors. A vivid perception of a purpose surely fulfilled according to our obser- 
 vation does not deprive us of childly trust in Him who works before our eyes. The 
 observed facts of evolution do not dispense with the thought of God. Nay, rather, 
 they postulate His action— to speak in the language of men— as the simplest hy- 
 pothesis to explain, or, more truly, to describe intelligibly, the progress which they 
 represent."— Bishop Westcott, " The Incarnation and Common Life," p. 46. 
 
h 
 2 
 
 □ 
 
 f- 
 
 O fe. 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 29 
 
 has not despised natural agencies, but uses them continually in their 
 proper place as instruments, while at the same time He has brought to 
 bear upon humanity forces which are above nature, and which in the 
 end have dominated and guided the whole process, and will continue 
 so to do. 
 
 This is true of sociology, even though it is viewed so narrowly as to 
 limit its range to the domain of the physical sciences, and is regarded 
 as concerned with the growth of society simply from 
 the viewpoint of naturalism. God has never left """*'= reconstructive 
 
 , . ,. , function of Christianity 
 
 even nature to supermtend itself, however we may ;„ mission fields, 
 be constrained by appearances to think so. If we 
 include, however, the psychological, ethical, and religious forces, which 
 have had such an influential mission in social development, we find all 
 the more reason to predicate a divine guidance and direction to the 
 agencies that have moulded the progress of mankind.^ In fact, these 
 moral and religious influences touching the higher life of man have 
 proved the determining factors in designating the goal of improve- 
 ment, and guiding man toward it, while at the same time God has 
 utilized a large and varied volume of natural forces as chosen instru- 
 mentalities in consummating His purpose. He has thus, in our day, 
 subsidized the whole realm of modern civilization to cooperate with 
 the higher spiritual agencies of missions as secondary instrumentalities 
 for the accomphshment of His larger plans. The facilities of educa- 
 tion, literature, medical science, diplomacy, colonization, commerce, 
 modern inventions, and even the dread reahties of war, are all made 
 subservient in the providence of God to the advancement of His king- 
 dom.2 Let us, then, seek to grasp this larger sociological scope, this 
 
 1 " The kingdom is not something which humanity produces by its own efforts, 
 but something which comes to it from above. It is the entrance into humanity of 
 a new life from heaven. In its origin, its powers, its blessings, its aims, its end, it 
 is supernatural and heavenly. Hence it is the kingdom of heaven, and two stadia 
 are distinguished in its existence — an earthly and an eternal ; the latter being the 
 aspect that chiefly prevails in the epistles."— Orr, " The Christian View of God and 
 the World," p. 405. 
 
 2 *' Christ, accordingly, gives us many indications of His true view of the rela- 
 tion of His kingdom to society. The world is His Father's, and human paternity 
 is but a lower reflection of the divine Fatherhood. Marriage is a divine institution, 
 to be jealously guarded, and Christ consecrated it by His special presence and 
 blessing. The State also is a divine ordinance, and tribute is due to its authorities. 
 The principles He lays down in regard to the use and perils of wealth, love to our 
 neighbor in his helplessness and misery, the care of the poor, the infinite value of 
 the soul, etc., introduce new ideals, and involve principles fitted to transform the 
 whole social system. His miracles of healing show His care for the body. With 
 
30 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PSOGJRESS 
 
 broadly reconstructive function of Christian missions, and recognize in 
 this great task which has been assigned to the Christian Church a 
 sacred and high call of service in the interest of social renovation as 
 well as individual redemption.* 
 
 A fourth remark is in place as to the timeliness of this theme in the 
 present horoscope of missions. A striking characteristic of our age is 
 
 the existence of an almost universal effort to re- 
 This Inquiry pertinent adjust Christianity to social life. A widespread 
 "^^ mi'Bsrn''progreT "^ feeling prevails that Christianity is not quite in its 
 
 proper attitude to society ; nor does it occupy its 
 legitimate sphere of influence in the realmof every- day human life. Even 
 among professing Christians its sway is too feeble and inoperative as a rule 
 and guide of life, while in the sphere of public morals, social obligation, 
 civil responsibility, commercial dealings, and all the delicate and burn- 
 ing questions of modern life, it is often strangely in the background. 
 The situation produces unrest and confusion of mind on the part of 
 many. It gives occasion for intemperate condemnation of Christianity 
 on the one hand, and for the advocacy of foolish and drastic remedies 
 of the doctrinaire order on the other hand. It sorely tries the spirits 
 of sincere Christians of the loyal and conservative type, and gives an 
 undesirable stimulus to the too inventive imaginations of radicals of 
 the inflammable and infallible species. It is not only a time of testing 
 and thoughtful scrutiny of the formulae of truth, but of the practical 
 adaptation of truth and its responsible adjustment to the problems and 
 mysteries of our modem life. It is, moreover, a time of searching 
 inquiry into the adequacy of Christianity as a remedy for the ills and 
 disappointments of social progress.^ Men are asking, as never before, 
 
 this correspond His injunctions to His disciples. He does not pray that they may 
 be taken out of the world, but only that they may be kept from its evil. They are 
 rather to live in the virorld, showing by their good works that they are the sons of 
 their Father in heaven, are to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Out 
 of this life in the world will spring a new type of marriage relation, of family 
 life, of relation between masters and servants, of social existence generally. It 
 cannot be otherwise, if Christ's kingdom is to be the leaven He says it shall be. 
 The apostles, in their views on all these subjects, are in entire accord with Christ." 
 —Ibid., p. 408. 
 
 1 " The Christian view affirms that the historical aim of Christ's work was the 
 founding of a kingdom of God on earth, which includes not only the spiritual salva- 
 tion of individuals, but a new order of society, the result of the action of the spiritual 
 forces set in motion through Christ."— /^/rf., p. 39. 
 
 2 " And what is the remedy for this reproach, but to show that Christianity is a 
 power also for temporal and social salvation, a leaven which is to permeate the whole 
 lump of humanity? It is on this side that a great and fruitful field opens itself up 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 31 
 
 for clearer evidence of its power to lead the world into ways of right- 
 eousness and paths of peace. There is a wistful yearning on the part 
 of some, an impatient scorn on the part of others, as to the real char- 
 acter of its resijlts in the history of the world after all these centuries. 
 Nothing, then, could be more pertinent than an inquiry as to the out- 
 come of Christian missions in the natural, and as yet untouched, 
 environments of heathen society. What is its record in the world's 
 open, away from the vantage-ground of Christendom, and separated 
 from the 6clat of its social prestige? 
 
 The question might be interposed just here whether we have not 
 taken too much for granted in the preceding statements. Are we 
 justified in thus associating Christian missions and 
 sociology ? If we should approach the subj ect from "ave missions and so- 
 
 . . . ciology any common 
 
 the standpomt of sociology as a science, would we ground? 
 
 find that this association is sanctioned by the scien- 
 tific spirit or justified by historic facts? Has sociology anything in com- 
 mon with Christian missions? This is a fair question, and deserves a 
 candid and careful answer. We feel bound to advance the claim that 
 Christian missions have already produced social results which are 
 manifest, and that society in the non-Christian world at the present 
 time is conscious of a new and powerful factor which is working posi- 
 tive and revolutionary changes in the direction of a higher civilization.^ 
 
 for Christian effort in the present day, on this side that Christianity finds itself in 
 touch with some of the most characteristic movements of the time. The ideals of 
 the day are preeminently social ; the key- word of positivism is ' altruism ' — the 
 organization of humanity for social efforts ; the call is to a ' service of humanity ' ; 
 the air is full of ideas, schemes, Utopias, theories of social reform ; and we, who 
 believe that Christianity is the motive power which alone can effectually attain what 
 these systems of men are striving after, are surely bound to put our faith to the 
 proof, and show to men that in deed and in truth, and not in word only, the king- 
 dom of God has come nigh to them. We know something of what Christianity did 
 in the Roman Empire as a power of social purification and reform ; of what it did in 
 the middle ages in the Christianizing and disciplining of barbarous nations ; of the 
 power it has been in modern times as the inspiration of the great moral and philan- 
 thropic movements of the century ; and this power of Christianity is likely to be yet 
 greater in the future than in the past. There is yet vast work to be accomplished 
 ere the kingdom of God is fully come." — Ibid., p. 378. 
 
 1 " In the history of this country there is nothing more clearly seen than the dis- 
 tributive force of Christian missions in their uplifting and sanctifying power. The 
 Gospel found the people enslaved. Like the proverbial stone which, when thrown 
 into the water, makes concentric circles on the surface, so the Gospel has created and 
 developed everything that is healthy and hopeful in the life of the people. Slavery 
 has disappeared before the teaching of Gospel truth, but no small disturbance was 
 made before the victory was won. In a small country we can more easily estimate 
 
32 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 While this may be conceded, it may yet be asked whether this fact 
 comes within the scope of sociology as a science, since it clearly pred- 
 icates a moral and religious agency which approaches non-Christian 
 society from without, and works by means of spiritual forces with a 
 predominantly religious aim. 
 
 Sociology is still searching for its final definitions, and feeling after 
 its own distinctive province and scope ; but enough has been settled in 
 
 regard to its place in the classification of modern 
 
 The true scope and aim learning to indicate that it is, in a broad sense, the 
 
 of sociology. science of human society. Perhaps a more adequate 
 
 designation would be the science of the origin 
 growth, and welfare of the collective life of mankind. It proposes a scien- 
 tific search for the genesis of associate life ; it seeks to elaborate the laws 
 and processes of its growth ; it aims at a classification of its elementary 
 constituents and its active forces ; it would know the secrets of the 
 normal development of society, and the remedies for its abnormal 
 phases. Its great and ultimate aim is the scientific development and 
 conservation of human society, and the successful ministry to its de- 
 fects and miseries. In this sense, it is not simply descriptive, resulting 
 in a mere historic chart of social development, or in simply " an inter- 
 pretation of human society in terms of natural causation," as Herbert 
 Spencer would teach us ; it is dynamic as well, taking cognizance of 
 the psychological forces which, in connection especially with the vol- 
 untary endowment of man, have entered so vigorously into the evo- 
 lutionary progress of human society. Its function, viewed in this 
 
 the results of social movements, and trace them to their source ; and with regard 
 to this island I have no hesitation in declaring that the influences which nourish 
 society come from church and school, and they are slowly, silently, and irresistibly 
 at work."— Rev. George McNeill (U. P. C. S.), Mount Olivet, Jamaica. 
 
 " It is in a measure difficult to trace every advance in civilization to its real cause, 
 and likewise to trace every advance in moral enlightenment to what we believe to be 
 its true origin. So in Japan it is almost impossible to show that every step upward 
 is directly the outcome of mission work, although in some form or other mission 
 work, operating either through the agencies of missionaries upon the field, or through 
 the agencies of Christian literature, or a literature imbued with Christian teaching 
 which has found its way to Japan, has, I believe, been the real medium through 
 which the wonderful force has acted which has upturned the deep-rooted customs of 
 ages, and worked over the soil until it has become capable of producing the marvel- 
 ous growth of the last thirty or thirty-five years. " — ^W. N. Whitney, M.D., United 
 States Legation, Japan. 
 
 " I believe in the Gospel, heart and soul, as the only remedy for the ills of human- 
 ity. Nothing else gets to the root of things. All that differentiates the Madagascar 
 of the present day from that of half a century ago— I might say from the native 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 33 
 
 aspect of it, may be designated as the practical building up of soci- 
 ety, not simply its rescue from its calamities and miseries, although this is 
 an important department. It proposes a scientific study of the normal, 
 wholesome activities of society in all their manifold forms and tenden- 
 cies, with a view to discovering the dominating forces which control 
 the collective life of man, and the laws of its progress and healthful 
 development.^ As there is a large part of social experience which is, 
 unhappily, of an abnormal character, revealing itself in the dependent, 
 defective, and delinquent classes, sociology must include these phases 
 of society, and, under the famiUar formula of " Charities and Correc- 
 tion," elaborate remedial measures to meet their requirements.^ 
 
 As man has not merely a physical or animal, but also a psychic en- 
 dowment peculiar to himself, as he is gifted with moral faculties and 
 spiritual life capable of responding to religious mo- 
 tives, we must include rehgious forces among the ^he sociological power 
 
 ..,of the religious en- 
 
 working factors of sociology. In fact, the spintual vironment. 
 
 or religious environment of man is perhaps as ag- 
 gressive and controlling in its power, where it has any vital connection 
 with the character, as any other iniluence which moves his inner life. 
 Mr. Benjamin Kidd is correct in his contention that the religious forces 
 of history, emphasizing as he does those distinctively Christian, are 
 necessary factors in a full and rounded social evolution.^ Neither 
 cosmic forces nor psychological activities can show results which, in 
 their vigor and effectiveness, can be compared with those produced by 
 the influence of religion in shaping the higher life of society. By 
 society we mean a mass of individuals standing in certain complex re- 
 lations to one another, and moving on towards a more developed organi- 
 zation in domestic, civil, economic, and ethical aspects. Its practical 
 outcome is the cooperative or associate Ufe of man, inspired by a spirit 
 of mutual consideration and helpfulness— this social instinct being con- 
 stitutional in man, the result of natural tendency rather than the man- 
 date of necessity or the product of environment. Society cannot be 
 called an organism in the biological or physiological sense of the word, 
 but only in the larger spiritual suggestivehess of the term, implying in- 
 dwelling to the queen's palace— is, either directly or indirectly, mostly directly, 
 due to the work of Christian missionaries and Christian missionary artisans."— 
 Rev. R. Baron (L. M. S.), Antananarivo, Madagascar. 
 
 1 Rev. C. D. Hartranft, D.D., President of Hartford School of Sociology. 
 
 2 Henderson, " An Introduction to the Study of the Dependent, Defective, and 
 Delinquent Classes " (see preface). Cf. Annals of the American Academy of Political 
 and Social Science, September, 1894, p. 120. 
 
 s " Social Evolution," pp. 123-126. 
 
34 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 terdependence and interaction, based, not upon physical stracture, but 
 upon higher relationships of a psychic or volitional character. 
 
 These religious forces have affected society in all lands and in all 
 ages of the world, not always to the advantage of humanity, but in some 
 
 cases to its decided injury and retrogression ; but 
 
 Christianity the true nevertheless they have worked almost universally 
 
 social touchstone. and incessantly. The saving feature in this aspect 
 
 of social development is that there has always been 
 a divinely given religious cult in the world which has possessed the 
 unmistakable credentials of God, and has represented His wisdom 
 and His will among men. The Christian system we believe to be the 
 outcome of the progressive revelation of divine teaching and guidance. 
 This is the religion in which Christendom confides, and to which it 
 owes its moral character and its social advancement, and this is also 
 the religion which Christian missions are carrying to the ends of the 
 earth, and seeking to introduce into the personal and social hfe of all 
 humanity. To be sure, Christianity makes problems which have never 
 before emerged in non-Christian society. It unmasks social evils, 
 challenges many accepted customs, brands habitual wrongs, and calls 
 to the bar traditional abuses, all of which have dominated society for 
 ages. It is not sociology, which is practically unknown in mission lands, 
 but Christianity which indicates these defects and questions their right 
 to be. But problems must exist before there can be any serious at- 
 tempt at their solution, and Christianity at the same time that it indi- 
 cates them points to that solution. It is the delineator and guide of 
 true progress. It is the index-finger which in all human history has 
 pointed the way towards a happier and more perfect social order.^ It 
 teaches with emphasis and moral power that fundamental condition of 
 all social welfare, the voluntary subordination of the interests of the 
 individual to the good of the whole. It is just this that makes rehgion 
 a vital element in sociology, and a true and rounded sociology an im- 
 portant aspect of religion. 
 
 It may perhaps be objected that strict science cannot include this 
 religious and altruistic scope of sociology, since science draws the line 
 
 at positive and knowable data. It has to do with 
 Sociology not merely fa^tg ^ud phenomena which can be discovered and 
 
 an academic dis- 
 cipline, observed. Sociology has therefore in this delimi- 
 tation of its scope been Hfted out of the realm of 
 exact science and expanded into an ideal of practical achievement. It 
 has become an art, and has therefore lost its proper scientific status. 
 1 Bascom, " Social Theory," pp. 505-526. 
 
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 Oi5 
 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 3B 
 
 If this is technically trae, does it follow that the result is so demoraliz- 
 ing to the standing and dignity of sociology that it cannot be accepted? 
 Is it not possible to regard sociology as more than an exact science, 
 with its phenomena, its forces, and its laws? May it not be counted 
 also a philosophy, with its theoretical principles and ideals? Nay ; can 
 it not assume also the aspect and scope of a practical art, with its es- 
 tablished rules, its executive methods, and its tangible products? If it 
 aims at the production of a coherent system of scientific knowledge 
 concerning social phenomena, and the exposition of the principles 
 which exercise a determining influence in social progress, must it be 
 bound hand and foot just here and be ruled out of the sphere of ser- 
 vice and ministry which opens in the realm of application? Sociology, 
 wrapped in the garments of a fundamental science, sitting in quiet 
 dignity within the closed doors of the university class-room, may be an 
 attractive academic conception ; but it assumes this exclusive position 
 only at the sacriiice of precious opportunities of usefulness, and the 
 neglect of a high call of responsibility and service.^ 
 
 Like many of the noblest sciences of our day, it involves interests so 
 vital to human welfare that it cannot possibly be confined within the 
 narrow lines of an academic discipline. We should have learned, 
 from the change which in the course of a single generation has come 
 over the spirit of political economy, that the secret of life and power 
 in every science which finds its sphere in the realm of human develop- 
 ment and welfare is not scientific exclusiveness nor philosophical pre- 
 cision, but moral tendency and practical utility. The old political 
 economy was a creed ; the new political economy is a life. The en- 
 vironment of the old was an aggregation of maxims in the realm of 
 theoretical science ; the new is a programme of practical living in the 
 arena of actual contact — man with man. Let us not fall into the mis- 
 take of relegating otu sociology to the interior of a scholastic class- 
 room. It will be sure to break away from such restrictions, and in the 
 interest not only of its practical usefulness, but of its true scientific scope 
 as well, to assert and establish its identification with the larger and 
 nobler life and the higher moral welfare of society. It is so compre- 
 
 1 Among the demands of our age to which a fully rounded system of sociology 
 should respond may be noted the following: a demand "for the construction on 
 the basis of scientific observation of social ideals to which the nature of men and so- 
 ciety may be gradually readjusted," and " for the utilization of knowledge about so- 
 ciety, i.e., the practical application of social forces in such a way as to give develop- 
 ment at least a tendency towards an ideal." See an article on " The Province of 
 Sociology," by George E. Vincent, in The American Jonmal of Socwlogy, January, 
 1896, p. 485. 
 
36 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 hensive in its range, so inclusive in its purpose, so practical in its results, 
 that it is truly a science of human progress, with its philosophic ideals 
 and its practical aspirations.^ It would be a lamentable mistake to 
 banish from sociology the motive power of an " ought " or deprive it of 
 the inspiration of an ideal. 
 
 There has been much discussion as to whether the expression " Chris- 
 tian sociology " is proper. The answer we would give is that, while a 
 true system of sociology includes religion as one 
 
 In what sense may the ^ . , . . ,- ,i • t_ 
 
 expression " Christian of its factors, It IS not for this reason by any means 
 • sociology " be prop- clear that the word " Christian " is necessary or even 
 eryuse desirable as a general description of the science. 
 
 If, however, those fundamental ethical principles of sociology which 
 are derived from the Bible and based upon the teachings of Christ 
 should be differentiated from other didactic aspects of the science, then 
 the word " Christian " may be in place as a designation of that phase of 
 sociological instruction which is drawn from and based directly upon 
 the Christian Scriptures. To the more strictly scientific realm of soci- 
 ological research it has no application whatever, but as a convenient 
 combination to indicate the social cult which Christianity especially 
 implies and enforces it is useful and proper.^ That the Christian religion 
 
 1 " If sociology is to stand and hold the place claimed for it, it must be construc- 
 tive and address itself to the work of applying social principles to concrete social 
 problems. If sociology is a real, coherent science, then we may expect from it large 
 results of great practical moment. That it has not become a science clearly defined, 
 and in its purpose accepted by all scholars and those seeking better social conditions, 
 is in part owing to its unwillingness to avow any constructive aim. The sciences 
 dealing with man in society can no longer remain indifferent or hostile to moral 
 laws which underlie all social progress. There is more to be done than to gather 
 statistical data and investigate phenomena apart from moral forces. The work of 
 sociology only begins with the observation of existing phenomena. We hold that it 
 must give society a knowledge of how to create phenomena that shall be just, how 
 to apply principles that will lead to right social motives and visions. . . . 
 
 " We believe that sociology should study the whole field of societary phenomena, 
 investigating uniformities and details in order to develop right principles of living, 
 right views of social relations. What is asked of sociology is a true science of 
 human society. It is not enough to learn how the social phenomena we have 
 about us came to be developed ; we want, besides this, a firm grasp on the laws, 
 and the causes producing them, and then a knowledge of how so to modify and con- 
 trol them that an improved society will result. Sociology must become a philosophy 
 of society, explaining what is, and also revealing what ought to \>i."— Social Econ- 
 omist, December, 1895, pp. 362, 363. 
 
 * " This desired definition is to be found in the use of the word ' Christian ' as par. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 37 
 
 involves moral forces which touch society to the quick and stir it to its 
 depths with masterly impact and energy cannot be denied. These 
 mighty incentives must be reckoned with in any satisfactory interpreta- 
 tion of social progress and in any true system of sociology, and it does 
 not seem an impossible thing to do this by some easy device of termi- 
 nology which would clearly indicate the various scientific, philosophical, 
 and practical aspects which a complete sociological system must in- 
 clude. While we cannot but admit the incongruity of the word " Chris- 
 tian " in connection with methods of research and historical study, yet, 
 as descriptive of the spirit of the philosophical ideal and of the aim 
 which, under the guidance of Christianity, controls the practical appli- 
 cation, we must recognize a Christian in distinction from a purely 
 scientific or non-biblical sociology.^ 
 
 allel with such adjectives as Hegelian, Aristotelian, Baconian. Just as the philoso- 
 phies bearing these names are respectively the gifts of Hegel and Aristotle and 
 Bacon, so Christian sociology should mean the sociology of Christ; that is, the so- 
 cial philosophy and teachings of Christ. In this restricted sense the term is both 
 legitimate and capable of an at least tentatively scientific content. 
 
 " It may be objected that no such philosophy and teachings exist — that Jesus was 
 a teacher of religion and morals, and that beyond the realm of these subjects His 
 words are as few as those concerning biology or historical criticism. Such a view, 
 however, is not easily tenable. While it is evident that Jesus has given us no sys- 
 tem of social teachings, He certainly was no more a systematic theologian than He 
 was a sociologist. And, u. priori, it would be a singular phenomenon if Christian 
 teaching and)life, which has everywhere effected the most remarkable social changes, 
 should itself be possessed of no sociological content. It is not altogether a reply to 
 say that good men must necessarily produce social improvements. Good Brahmans 
 in India have not greatly elevated women, and good Greeks in Athens supported 
 slavery. Advance in civilization has not been accomplished by simply producing 
 individuals of high religious and moral character. Since the days when the law 
 went forth forbidding the branding of criminals. Christian impulses have been quite 
 as much social ^ individual. The yeast of the kingdom has been quite as much 
 political as personal. Is it altogether impossible that He whose teachings have up- 
 turned empires and founded new civilizations should have been altogether unsuspi- 
 cious of the social and political forces that lay within His words ? " — Professor Shailer 
 Mathews in article on " Christian Sociology," The American Journal of Sociology, 
 July, 1895, p. 70. Cf. also article on " Christian Sociology," by James A. Quarles, 
 D.D., The Presbyterian Quarterly, January, 1896, and article on "What is Soci- 
 ology?" by Z. Swift Holbrook, The Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1895. 
 
 1 " Christianity is found in the very warp and woof of human social life. Its 
 institutions are part of the material of human society. Christianity is a tremendous 
 social force, and its sacred books are a mine of rich sociological material, which has 
 been hardly opened by the sociologist as it should be. These resources are there- 
 fore indispensable to the sociologist. They are so great and important that he may 
 well treat them under the appropriately scientific title of ' Christian Sociology.' "— 
 S. W. Dike, LL.D., The Homiletic Review, August, 1895, pp. 176, 177. 
 
38 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 We are considering, let it be remembered, sociology and not social- 
 ism, which are two distinct ideas. Socialism is an untried ideal, and, 
 
 at present, a very unsettled theory of social re- 
 christian sociology dia- construction ) sociology is a careful collation and 
 *'TiLn*''ocursr"'" study of data with a view to the elaboration of the 
 
 scientific basis of a constructive, well-balanced, 
 and healthful development. The expression " Christian socialism " 
 leads us into another and different field of thought, which it is not in 
 place here to discuss. It may be remarked, however, that the relation 
 of the Church to social reform as advocated by Christian socialism is 
 not to be identified with sociology. The expression at least raises the 
 question whether it is wise for Christianity to identify itself with a 
 theory which may or may not be workable under the auspices of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 Sociology, then, is a scientific effort to understand society, the laws 
 of its growth, the philosophy of its progress, the true secret of its healthy 
 
 advance, and the effective remedy for its defects. 
 
 Sociology in its con- ju {jg constructive aspccts it is in a vital sense a 
 
 dominantiy ethical, science of morals. The deepest and noblest forces 
 
 which characterize it are ethical. It has been de- 
 scribed as " ethics applied to the economic situation." ^ This is not 
 denying that there are also physical, psychological, and economic forces 
 at work too, but it is simply asserting that the most effective and only 
 permanently hopeful forces which work towards the ideal goal have 
 their springs in the moral and religious environment of man. A wise 
 and useful sociology can never be content with simply a knowledge 
 and classification of phenomena. Sciences with a direct bearing upon 
 human welfare usually have what may be designated as primary and 
 ultimate aims. The primary aim is to determine and systematize phe- 
 nomena and principles. The ultimate aim is practical, involving the 
 use and appUcation of the knowledge so obtained. We see this illus- 
 trated in theology, medicine, law, and poHtical economy. It holds 
 true also in sociology, its primary aim being to study social phenomena, 
 to examine and classify them, and ascertain the laws which may be de- 
 duced therefrom, and its ultimate aim being to apply this knowledge to 
 
 1 Professor Peabody, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
 Science, September, 1894, p. 117, 
 
 " History is sociological evolution. I should say that ethics, looked at not from 
 an historical and descriptive standpoint, but from that of improvement, is identical 
 with sociology. It is sociology working towards the igoal of human betterment"— 
 Professor J. R. Commons, ibid., p. ij6. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 39 
 
 the nourishment and healthy growth of normal society and the remedial 
 treatment of abnormal humanity. In this applied aspect it is broadly 
 humanitarian. Its ultimate aim is therefore constructive. It is capa- 
 ble of scientific treatment, and at the same time yields itself to philo- 
 sophical elaboration and to practical appUcation. It becomes not 
 simply a science, but a benign philosophy and a practical art for guid- 
 ing and helping humanity in its struggles and triumphs.^ 
 
 Sociology is a word which has come to stay ; it is a science with a 
 great future. Other sciences in a certain sense contribute to its great- 
 ness and its usefulness.^ It is indebted to history, 
 
 ethnology, anthropology, law, politics, economics, Sociology an inclusive 
 ... jiittt' .■' -. and comprehensive 
 
 ethics, and kindred sciences for important data science, 
 
 upon which it can base its generalizations, and it 
 aims to make all knowledge subservient to its higher and grander pur- 
 pose of guiding humanity towards its social goal. It is both a supple- 
 ment and a complement to all the social sciences.^ It can draw much 
 of its inspiration from Christianity, and in its moral principles it can 
 have no safer and wiser guide. Its purest impulses and its most effec- 
 tive service will be based upon the golden rule and prompted by the 
 golden example of Christ.* Through the sacred urgency and the su- 
 
 1 On the importance of sociology in the educational curriculum, consult " Sociol- 
 ogy in Institutions of Learning, " being a report of the seventh section of the Inter- 
 national Congress of Charities, Correction, and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893, 
 edited by Amos G. Warner, Ph.D., Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1894. 
 
 2 " Sociology is an advanced study, the last and latest in the entire curriculum. 
 It should, perhaps, be mainly postgraduate. It involves high powers of generaliza- 
 tion, and, what is more, it absolutely requires a broad basis of induction. It is 
 largely a philosophy, and in these days philosophy no longer rests on assumptions, 
 but on facts. To understand the laws of society the mind must be in possession of 
 a large body of knowledge. This knowledge should not be picked up here and 
 there at random, but should be instilled in a methodical way. It should be fed to 
 the mind with an intelligent purpose in view, and that purpose should be the prepa- 
 ration of the mind for ultimately entering the last and most difficult as well as most 
 important field of human thought, that of sociology. Therefore history, political 
 economy, and the other generic branches should first be prosecuted as constituting 
 the necessary preparation for the study of the higher ordinal principles. . . . 
 
 " We see, then, the high place which sociology, properly defined, should hold 
 among the sciences, and how clear and incisive are the boundaries which mark it off 
 from all other branches of learning. It is the cap-sheaf and crown of any true sys- 
 tem of classification of the sciences, and it is also the last and highest landing on the 
 great staircase of education."— Lester F. Ward, "The Place of Sociology among 
 the Sciences," in The American Journal of Sociology, July, 1895, pp. 25, 27. 
 
 s Professor R. T. Ely, " Outline of Economics," p. 82. 
 
 < Cf. Professor Shailer Mathews on Christ's teachings concerning society, in 
 
40 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 preme motives of religion it will accomplish its most benign triumphs. 
 It presents a noble opportunity for the Church to inculcate its religious 
 teachings and impress its practical morality upon the social sciences of 
 our age,i which, if we read aright the signs of the times, will ultimately 
 supplant to a considerable extent the physical sciences in that position 
 of preeminence which they have held, and take possession of the field 
 as perhaps the most distinctive intellectual and moral characteristic of 
 the coming century. Even though we accept the noble contention 
 which Professor Drummond, if he did not originate, has at least illu- 
 mined by his powerful advocacy, namely, that nature herself supplies 
 an altruistic discipline and imparts a humanizing and uplifting culture, 
 yet sociology as it is presented in " The Ascent of Man," if we rightly 
 interpret his meaning, is to be counted the child of naturalism. As there 
 expounded it is difficult to recognize in that system of nature culture, 
 so elaborately idealized, any satisfactory and legitimate relation be- 
 tween sociology and those supernatural agencies and forces which rep- 
 resent God's spiritual activity in the sphere of social evolution, and 
 man's response to the culture power of religion. This judgment should, 
 however, be expressed with diffidence, as the issue of a subsequent 
 volume dealing with man in the era of his historic race development 
 might have shown clearly the place of Christianity in Professor Drum- 
 mond's scheme of sociology. From the standpoint of Christian faith, 
 utihtarianism, the struggle for existence, the stress of competition, and 
 all the selfish energies which contend in the social arena, are but one 
 aspect— not by any means ±e most decisive and vitalizing— of the 
 problem of human progress. Moral influences, ethical aspirations, con- 
 scientious ideals, the sense of justice, the instincts of brotherhood, the 
 standards of righteousness, the sweet and noble lessons of love and 
 sacrifice as they have always been taught in the divine religion, and the 
 high and authoritative call Of service to God and man are also factors of 
 commanding and essential importance in the movement of humanity 
 towards the higher levels of a purified and redeemed society.^ 
 
 article on " Christian Sociology," in The American Journal of Sociology, November, 
 1895. PP- 359-380. 
 
 1 Cf. article by Professor Arthur S. Hoyt on " Sociology in Theological Train- 
 ing." The Homiletic Review, November, 1895, p. 459. 
 
 2 " Man finds himself part of a social system in which regard for the good of all 
 is the guiding principle that brings order out of confusion. The history of social 
 evolution shows that, in proportion as man gains faith in this principle, and applies 
 It mtelligently to wider groups of society and to each and all of the relations of so- 
 eiaUrganization, in that proportion has he advanced in happiness and dignity. 
 
 . " We also find that a very large shue of this advancement has been due to Chris- 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 41 
 
 There seems to be no valid reason apart from the scientific conscious- 
 ness of our age — so abnormally reluctant to allow any place or scope 
 to the supernatural — to doubt the intervention at 
 
 , ■ • 1 -1 1 < 1 Is universal evolution 
 
 times of an ongmal cause in the supposed unbroken the only postulate oi 
 continuity of secondary evolutionary processes. a true sociological 
 As a postulate of philosophy it may be conceded 
 that given an omniscient and omnipotent Creator and a possible exer- 
 cise of creative power sufficiently inclusive and comprehensive in its 
 scope, evolution as a universal potentiality and an all-inclusive method 
 is conceivable. This is not saying, however, that it is inherently neces- 
 sary or that it is proven. The very existence of a primal, original cause 
 makes these points open questions. If evolution is conceived to be a 
 pervasive law of nature and life, the marvelous fascination and gran- 
 deur of the conception tend to captivate the imagination and take pos- 
 session of the scientific mind. The temptation to make it a universal 
 law is all-powerful. Every phenomenon of nature, life, intelligence, 
 religion, and destiny must yield to its sway and be interpreted in terms 
 of evolution. This is just the point of issue between the thoroughgoing 
 evolutionist with a naturalistic bias, whose surrender to the intellec- 
 tual dominion of the idea is apparently complete, and the believer in 
 the supernatural as a factor in history, and especially as a determining 
 agency in the spiritual, intellectual, and social development of man. 
 The first point at issue is. Shall any line be drawn to the universal ex- 
 tension of the law of evolution? If a possible limitation is conceded, 
 a further question arises as to where the lines of limitation must be 
 
 tianity. Though other systems of teaching have dimly apprehended the ideal, they 
 have none of them been able to inspire men with new motives that are able to hold 
 the brutal tendencies of the race strongly in check. In populous regions there seems 
 to have been a slow biological evolution through which altruistic instincts have 
 gained increasing force; but no power outside of Christianity seems able to take 
 man as he is, in any and every land, and set him on a new course. The cause of 
 this wonderful power in Christianity seems to lie in its ability to assure men of the 
 fatherhood of God as well as of the brotherhood of man. Indeed, judging from my 
 own experience and from what I have observed in China and Japan, it seems as if a 
 strong hold on the latter idea, such as will awaken the enthusiasm of humanity, is 
 attained only by those who are filled with the former idea. . . . 
 
 " This kingdom of God is a kingdom of love, which He assures us is to spread its 
 influence into all lands ; ' for the meek shall inherit the earth. ' Not only has Christ 
 become a leading factor in the evolution of society, but, in the survival of the meek 
 and the righteous. He has opened to us the philosophy of this higher evolution, and 
 the truth of the philosophy is sustained by the gradual fulfillment of the predictions 
 based on the philosophy."— Rev. John T. Gulick, Ph.D., on " Christianity and the 
 Evolution of Rational Life," The Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1896, pp. 70. 72. 
 
42 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 drawn. The burning issue here concerns the origin of man and his 
 religious environment. Is man, body and soul, the product of evolu- 
 tion, and if so, are his rehgious environment and the whole intellectual, 
 moral, and social outcome of his history all reducible without limitation 
 to the terms of evolution in harmony with processes of natural law? 
 Has God wrought invariably by this method, or, to put it more baldly, 
 has He left nature to work out its own destiny through endless ages 
 of incalculable variation, differentiation, selection, adjustment, survival, 
 development, and progress towards a more complex and perfect exis- 
 tence? Here in simple terminology is the great problem of our age- 
 in fact, of all ages. 
 
 It may be said in this connection that it is manifestly impossible to 
 make the scientific consciousness of this or any age the final test of 
 truth. If we turn, then, to the evidence available we find a formidable, 
 yet at certain points wholly inconclusive, body of proof for evolution 
 as a universal postulate. Over against this, however, we have to con- 
 sider the existence of God, His power of intervention. His freedom, 
 the exigencies of His moral government, the introduction of His own 
 spiritual likeness into the system of nature, the establishment of moral 
 responsibility in connection with personality, the gift of immortality, 
 the institution of ethical standards and a test of obedience, the entrance 
 of sin into the experience of man, and the provision of a vast and 
 marvelous remedial system based upon the Incarnation, the Atonement, 
 and the mediatorial offices of Christ, accompanied by a revelation of 
 His will and the active and mystical ministry of the Holy Spirit as a 
 power transcending nature and giving new life and inspiration to man 
 in his struggle for moral achievement and victory. Is all this to be 
 explained in terms of evolution, even though its scope may justly be 
 regarded as immense? When we consider all that is implied of divine 
 agency and environment in human history, are we not touched with 
 the supreme majesty of the supernatural, not in the narrow sense of the 
 miraculous, but in its larger significance as a transcendent conception 
 which cannot be set aside without doing violence to the plain teaching 
 of revelation, infinitely lowering the status of human life and deeply 
 obscuring its destiny? Then there is the hard fact of a race degeneracy 
 which makes it, according to the testimony of experience, not only im- 
 probable but impossible, from a moral point of view, that spiritual good- 
 ness should be evolved from sin, or truth from error, or renewal from 
 decay. It becomes, therefore, a natural and consistent necessity that 
 God should come to the help of man in the gift of a true, helpful, guid- 
 ing, regenerating religion, which gives him a new start and provides him 
 
The Main Building. Interior of Library. 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Beirut. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 43 
 
 with the spiritual resources he needs. At three points evolution falters : 
 it fails to account for the existence of life, for the spiritual nature of 
 man as in God's likeness and endowed with an immortal and responsi- 
 ble personality, and, once more, for man's religious environment as 
 embodied in the Christian system. The bearing of the latter point upon 
 social evolution is important. If a supernatural religion has been given, 
 then social evolution has been so far modified and directed. Chris- 
 tianity is an added factor and has its part to play.i If, therefore, man 
 fails to adjust himself to his spiritual or supernatural environment, social 
 progress lacks its noblest, we might say its essential, factor. It main- 
 tains itself on the plane of nature, in an atmosphere of physical or 
 psychic development only, without the higher and more inspiring con- 
 sciousness of that incarnate personaUty which is central in Christianity. 
 Christian missions then become a guiding and determining force in the 
 social progress of the world in proportion to their extension and success. 
 
 This discussion of the scope of sociology has brought us again to the 
 question whether Christian missions should be considered a sociological 
 agency. We reply without hesitation that, Chris- 
 tianity being sociological in its scope. Christian christian missions ne- 
 . . .,..,. cessarily a militant 
 
 missions must be so considered, for their one pur- social force, 
 
 pose is to propagate Christianity and bring it into 
 touch with the individual heart and with the associate life of man.^ It 
 seems impossible to deny to missions a social scope of immense signifi- 
 cance. They deal with the individual, and through him reach society. 
 If they change the religious convictions and the moral character of the 
 man, they put him at once into a new attitude towards the domestic, 
 civil, economic, and ethical aspects of society. If they put the indi- 
 vidual right with God they will necessarily transform his attitude to 
 wards man into harmony with Christian teaching. They introduce alstf 
 new institutions into the social life of mankind,— not simply new eccle- 
 siastical organizations, but new educational and philanthropic move- 
 ments,— and they also plant the germs of new political and industrial 
 ideals, and open a new realm of intellectual and rehgious thought, 
 which is focused in a wonderful way upon a new conception of liberty 
 and a purer and nobler social life. 
 
 1 Cf. article by F. F. EUinwood, D.D., in The Presbyterian and Reformed 
 Review, April, 1896, pp. 204-206. 
 
 2 Cf. " Sociological Christianity a Necessity," The Methodist Review, May, 1891, 
 pp. 449-456. 
 
44 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Christian missions, moreover, enter an environment where Christian- 
 ity is bound to overturn and overturn, in the interests of morality, jus- 
 tice, and a larger and freer life to man. It brings " not peace, but a 
 sword." It faces some of the primitive problems of society, and plunges 
 at once into the thick of that tangled mass of traditional ideas and pre- 
 vailing customs which are characteristic of ancient social systems. As 
 an illustration, consider the attitude of Christian missions towards 
 woman and her condition in the non-Christian world. They have a 
 work to do also in behalf of children, and in the sphere of charities 
 and correction, of industrial education, of medical and philanthropic 
 efforts. In fact, almost every aspect of the ministry of Christianity to 
 dependent, defective, and delinquent social conditions with which we 
 are familiar is or will be open to Christian effort in foreign lands. The 
 Christian missionary is face to face with a colossal criminology, a vast, 
 unregulated, and pitiless penology. He deals with the raw material of 
 all social sciences, with political economy in its savage and crude stage, 
 with social institutions in barbarous confusion or reduced to a rude and 
 primitive order. His life is in the midst of a society which is a perfect 
 web of problems. He is a workman amidst social deterioration and 
 sometimes amidst national decay. Then again it must be borne in 
 mind that the religion he teaches stands for some of the most impor- 
 tant sociological ideals — brotherhood, freedom, individual rights, justice, 
 honor, integrity, and Christian ethics. If an ideal may be defined as 
 an inspired and militant idea, then the Christian missionary is the knight 
 errant of social chivalry, with a mission to iight moral evil and strive for 
 the establishment of a nobler, purer, and happier social order wherever 
 God's providence leads him. He is a messenger and a prophet of that 
 kingdom which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
 He works against enormous odds to introduce the Gospel as a factor 
 in the transformation and elevation of human society, and to rescue 
 it from the downward trend. He works in the first instance directly 
 with the individual soul, seeking its spiritual enlightenment and renewal, 
 but in so doing he teaches also lessons in the art of living, and quickens 
 aspirations and implants tendencies which ultimately accomplish a large 
 and beneficent work in the general betterment of society. This is a 
 range of service too broad and complex for foreign missionaries them- 
 selves to compass, but they will, so to speak, " set the pace," and give 
 an impetus to the aspirations of native society, which, under the culture 
 of Christianity, will make the coming century an era of immense and 
 benign social progress. 
 
 Christian missions represent, therefore, what may be designated in 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 45 
 
 unscientific language as accelerated social evolution, or evolution under 
 the pressure of an urgent force which has been introduced by a process 
 of involution. They grapple at close quarters 
 with social conditions which may be regarded in of soci^urlnsformation 
 the light of moral standards as in a measure inherent in Christ's 
 chaotic, " without form, and void." They have *"'*'^ '°^^' 
 
 to contend alone at first, and perhaps for several generations, with 
 primitive social conditions, the confused result of the age-long struggles 
 of humanity. The spirit of order and moral regeneration has never 
 brooded over that vast social abysm. It has never touched with its re- 
 constructive power the elements heaped together in such strange con- 
 fusion. Christian missions enter this socially disorganized environment 
 with its varying aspects of degeneracy, ranging from the higher civili- 
 zation of the Orient to the savagery of barbarous races, and in most 
 cases without the aid of any legal enactments engage in a moral strug- 
 gle with those old traditions and immemorial customs which have long 
 had their sway as the regnant forces of society. They deal with a re- 
 ligious consciousness almost painfully immature in spiritual things, so 
 that the splendid task of a matured Christian experience as represented 
 in missions is to take by the hand this childhood of the heart and mind, 
 and, by the aid of the rich and effective resources of our modem en- 
 vironment, put it to school — lead it by the shortest path into the large- 
 ness of vision and the ripeness of culture which have come to us all too 
 slowly and painfully. What we have sown in tears let them reap in 
 joy. In many foreign fields missions must face conditions which are 
 so complex, so subtle, so elaborately intertwined with the structure of 
 society, so solidified by age, and so impregnably buttressed by the 
 public sentiment of the people, that all attempts at change or modifica- 
 tion seem hopeless, and yet slowly and surely the change comes. It 
 comes through the secret and majestic power of moral guidance and 
 social transformation which seems to inhere in that Gospel which 
 Christian missions teach. 
 
 In this aspect of their work, however high may be the estimate put 
 upon evangelism, they deserve appreciation also as a social ministry, 
 and should have the support and sympathy of every lover of humanity.i 
 
 1 " We cannot doubt that God is calling us in this age, through the characteristic 
 teachings of science and of history,' to seek anew social application of the Gospel. 
 We cannot doubt, therefore, that it is through our obedience to the call that we shall 
 realize its divine power. The proof of Christianity which is prepared by God, as I 
 believe, for our times, is a Christian society filled with one spirit in two forms- 
 righteousness and love."— Bishop Westcott, " The Incarnation and Common Life," 
 P- 237- 
 
46 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 They are worthy of the notice and the admiration of every student of 
 social science, and should receive the credit which is their due in recog- 
 nition of their pioneer work in the direction of world-wide social recon- 
 struction. They represent the advance-guard of sociology in its march 
 into the realms of partially civilized or wholly barbarous society. They 
 are partly based upon and largely inspired by the well-founded con- 
 viction that the noblest possible synthesis of social phenomena is that 
 in which Christian ideals exercise a guiding and determining influence. 
 In fact, it is the lesson of history that no high ethical product is possi- 
 ble unless Christianity has a controlling power in moulding society. 
 According to the most scientific conception of sociology, Christ is a 
 great sociological leader in human history. He founded a cultural as- 
 sociation which has had a mighty influence upon the inner experience 
 and ethical development of society in almost every aspect of its multi- 
 form structure and life. The " consciousness of kind " which Professor 
 Giddings emphasizes as the psychological basis of social groupings, 
 and to which he gives such prominence as the controlling influence in 
 social development, is especially prominent in religious life, and is sim- 
 ply the spiritual secret of Christianity as a unifying and sympathetic 
 force in history. Christians are united to Christ by a living, spiritual 
 tie, personal in its character and quickening in its impulses, and are 
 united to one another by the bond of brotherhood and a common faith. 
 The " consciousness of kind " is based upon spiritual likeness and com- 
 munity of life, and this gives to Christianity, as representative of Christ, 
 its power in the social development of mankind. The quality, spirit, 
 power, and inspiration of this consciousness are what give to Christian- 
 ity a supreme place in moulding social progress. If this kind of con- 
 sciousness, as well as the consciousness of this kind, could become more 
 potent in the world, there would be a brighter social outlook for the race. 
 It is worthy of note that sociologists of eminence, including such 
 specialists as Professors Giddings, Small, Ely, Patten, Bascom, Hender- 
 son, Mathews, Lindsay, and Mackenzie place an appreciative estimate 
 from the scientific standpoint upon missionary effort.^ Whatever may 
 
 1 Giddings, " The Principles of Sociology,'' p. 360; Small and Vincent, " An In- 
 troduction to the Study of Society," pp. 363, 364 ; Ely, cf. " Social Aspects of Chris- 
 tianity," and his introductory note to Fremantle's " The World as the Subject of 
 Redemption " ; Bascom, " Sociology," pp. 249, 263, and " Social Theory," pp. 520- 
 526; Henderson, " Rise of the German Inner Mission," The American Journal of 
 Sociology, March, 1896, p. 592; Mathews, " Christian Sociology," ibid., November, 
 l895> P- 379 i Lindsay, cf. Annals of the American Academy, March, 1896, p. 202 ; 
 Mackenzie, " An Introduction to Social Philosophy," p. 327. Prof. S. N. PatteC 
 writes, " I regard the missionary movement as one of the greatest forces in modern 
 civilization." 
 
The Assembly Hall— Interior. 
 
 The Assembly Hall— Exterior. 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Beirut. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 47 
 
 be the special theory of the genesis and growth of society which they 
 hold, yet the missionary idea, as representing the most ardent and per- 
 sistent effort for the establishment of high ethical standards and the 
 planting of the best cultural agencies among people of retarded or 
 arrested development, commands their respect and approval. 
 
 The fact that devout men have gone to the mission fields with the 
 single aim of saving individual souls and securing to them a portion in 
 the spiritual benefits of Christianity does not at all 
 indicate that this is all there is to missions. The "^^^ larger vision of 
 aim was Christ-like, and was a sign of sublime faith ° misstoM!" '" 
 
 and true heroism, and yet it may not fully repre- 
 sent the length and breadth of God's purpose. God often uses men 
 of one special aim, with a somewhat contracted although vivid and in- 
 tense conception of their mission, to accomplish through them a work 
 of larger and grander scope than they realize. His intentions are not 
 limited by man's comprehension of them. Many of the most magnifi- 
 cent movements of history have been a surprise to those who have, un- 
 wittingly perhaps, contributed by their labors and leadership to bring 
 them about. Duty often means much more than we think it does. 
 God frequently honors a faithful and obedient servant by accomplish- 
 ing through him more than he expects. In obedience to divine direc- 
 tion, he sows the seed without knowing what the fullness and glory of 
 the harvest will be. In fact, " the work of the Christian reformer," as 
 has been well said, "is that of the sower, and not that of the con- 
 queror." What a chapter of hope, what a vista of beneficent results, 
 open up in the work of missions when we regard it as a chosen instru- 
 mentality for the accomplishment of the larger plans of God for human 
 society! The trite sneer at missions, unfortunately so common even 
 among professing Christians, is a miserable anachronism in our age. 
 It is the acme of religious provincialism ; it is simply the old Pharisee- 
 ism in a modern garb. 
 
 Christian missions, as we shall see more fully later, have evidently 
 entered upon a crusade not alone for the spiritual redemption of indi- 
 vidual souls, but also with a larger piu'pose to re- 
 deem the life that now is, so that the social desert The sublimity and com- 
 
 prehensiveness of 
 
 of the non-Christian world shall some day bloom their task, 
 
 and blossom as the rose under the ministry and 
 culture of Christianity. They are of necessity charged with this sub- 
 lime task. The religion of Jesus Christ can never enter non-Christian 
 society and be content to leave things as they are. The life that now 
 is in lands as yet but partially touched by Christianity has in it depths 
 of misery and sorrow, heights of cruel, audacious wrong, lengths of far- 
 
48 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 reaching and crushing iniquity, and breadths of vast social evil, which 
 Christendom, with all its perplexing problems, happily does, not reveal. 
 Christianity can never affiliate with these existing evils, nor can it con- 
 done them. It must work steadily and inexorably to supplant and 
 abolish them. It must deal patiently with all phases of social defect. 
 It must work with the power of sympathy and by the living energy of 
 its principles to reform these great and brooding wrongs that oppress 
 and dominate heathen society.^ 
 
 We would not be understood for a moment, in giving prominence 
 
 to the sociological scope of missions, to be casting the slightest discredit 
 
 The evangelical spirit upon, or evcn detracting in any sense from, the 
 
 and aim of missions honor and heavenly sacredness of the evangelical 
 
 ""byt'hesoctoiog'tar'' purpose. Individual regeneration, instruction, 
 
 method. guidance, and salvation are indeed the first and 
 
 most indispensable purpose of the Christian missionary evangel. It 
 
 would be, moreover, a lamentable and fatal mistake to substitute any 
 
 1 " With every year of missionary experience the conviction has grown that the 
 Gospel of Christ is a Gospel for all life— here not less than hereafter— and for all 
 departments of life, and that for missionary workers to make it relate solely to sal- 
 vation after death is a mistake, and to a great extent a defeat of its own ends ; thai 
 godliness, in its ever-to-be-sought perfection, disallows crudities, unloveliness, bar- 
 barities, and cruelties in conditions and customs of every-day life and relationship ; 
 that the Gospel of Christ aims quite as much at removing these as it points to the 
 ' golden streets ' and ' mansions ' made ready ; that the reformation of earthly life is 
 indeed the preparation for the heavenly citizenship, and should be not the selfish sav- 
 ing of individual souls alive, but a work as broad and inclusive as is the Love that 
 ' so loved the world ' ; so that no physical, social, governmental, or intellectual ob- 
 stacle to man's truest and highest development is too secular for the spirit of Christ 
 and His Gospel to strike at through its missionaries. 
 
 " It seems to me that the somewhat tardy progress of missions in the past has 
 been largely due to a hyperspirituality — a separation of the soul from its God-given 
 earthly conditions ; a snatching of the brand, not a putting out of the fires for the 
 benefit of brands at large ; a jealous care for the individual, not supplemented by 
 an equal care for society of which he is a member, rather a hopeless condemnation 
 and fleeing as from the doomed Sodom. 
 
 " I believe that the spirit that is working in the churches at home towards a more 
 practical and thoroughgoing Christianity is also beginning to work in our hearts here 
 in foreign lands, and we are waking up to feel that both the individual and society 
 are equal objects of Christ's saving power— the one not more than the other, nor 
 without the other. When this spirit fully possesses the Church both at home and 
 abroad, then we shall see the coming of the kingdom of God with no faltering foot- 
 steps. I believe thaf there is something in even the most darkened and degraded 
 people that protests against fleeing Lot-like from Sodom, but responds whole-sonledly 
 to the hope of the redemption of society from the bottom up."— Dr. Grace N. 
 Kimball (A. B. C. F. M.), Van, Turkey. 
 
Preparatory Department. Astronomical Observatory. Medical Building. 
 
 Syrian Protestant College. Beirut. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 40 
 
 Other aim or adopt any other method than that of personal instruction 
 and appeal. The individual conscience is the only practical basis for 
 conscious responsibility. We would not be understood as asserting the 
 necessity or even propriety of any exclusively sociological programme 
 for missions. The way to reach society is through the individual. The 
 individual soul is in the first instance the receptacle of the leaven of 
 Christianity ; from thence it leavens all the lump. The spiritual regen- 
 eration of the individual involves a further and larger influence upon 
 the collective life. Just as the social misery and degradation of our 
 great communities within the bounds of civilization are simply the cumu- 
 lative result of individual delinquency and demoralization, so the sav- 
 ing of society is to be secured only through the uplifting of individual 
 character, which in its total accretion issues in the redemption of so- 
 ciety as a whole.i As Christianity advances from heart to heart in this 
 and other lands, it advances from home to home, and involves almost 
 unconsciously a large and generous new environment of influences 
 which works for the reformation and gradual discrediting of the old 
 stolid wrongs of society. It works in foreign communities a slow, al- 
 most unrecognized, yet steadily aggressive change in public opinion. 
 It awakens new and militant questions about stagnant evils. It dis- 
 turbs and proceeds to sift and disintegrate objectionable customs. It 
 stimulates moral aspirations and quickens a wistful longing for a higher 
 and better state of society. Christianity has been building better than 
 it knew in establishing its missions in the heart of these ancient social 
 systems. The sociological awakening in Christendom is not more im- 
 pressive than the hitherto almost unnoticed achievements of missions 
 abroad in the same general direction, in securing the enfranchisement 
 of human rights, the introduction of new social ideals, and the over- 
 throw of traditional evUs. 
 
 The question may still suggest itself to some minds, whether this 
 view of the sociological significance of Christian missions is justified 
 
 1 " We may talk as we please about the welfare of the social aggregate or of so- 
 ciety as being the proper object and test of all human endeavor ; but the welfare of 
 a society is nothing except as it exists in the conscious experiences of the separate 
 men and women who compose it. A society can have no happiness which is not the 
 happiness of its separate members any more than an edition of ' Hamlet ' can have 
 any dramatic qualities which do not exist between the covers of each separate copy. 
 In this respect social science presents an absolute contrast to physical. The physi- 
 cal unit is of interest to us only for the sake of the aggregate. The social aggregate 
 is of interest to us only for the sake of the unit."— W. H. Mallock, " Physics and 
 Sociology," The Contemporary Revievi, December, 1895, p. 890. 
 
50 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 by facts. Can it be vindicated? Is there sxJEcient evidence to sanc- 
 tion this immense enlargement of the import of the enterprise? In 
 answering this question we should consider care- 
 
 Thc social outcome of , ,, . , . ^ i_ ..i • i e • 
 
 missions « natural and fuUy Just what IS meant by this larger scope of mis- 
 unconscious revelation gjoji service. It must not be regarded as in any 
 eir power. sense a criticism or reversal of accepted views of 
 the scope and purpose of missions. It is rather an effort to group under 
 some expressive formula those indirect and outlying results of Christian 
 effort in foreign lands in its influence upon society. It points simply 
 to the irresistible trend of Christian teaching, as it instinctively and 
 necessarily disturbs and uproots the deep-seated evils that have been 
 so long the unchallenged environment of the social status. Just as the 
 Hving seed develops according to the law of its individual growth, and 
 finds its consummation in a single matured plant after its kind, ready 
 for the harvest, and thus discharges its essential and primary function 
 as a seed, so the spiritual seed produces its legitimate result in a ripened 
 individual character. But while the natural seed has ripened, and pre- 
 sents the harvest grain as its climax, yet in so doing it has, as it were, 
 unconsciously produced other results, which, although they may be re- 
 garded as secondary and indirect, nevertheless challenge our admira- 
 tion and fasten our attention. The matured flower, for example, colors 
 the landscape, adds a fragrance to the air, and is full of a ministry of 
 beauty. Vegetation which has attained its growth gives also a varied 
 aspect to nature, or produces the useful forests. The waving grain of 
 harvest becomes food for the world, and furnishes the seed of another 
 sowing. These natural and inevitable results of the ripening of single 
 seeds cannot be ranked as the essential and primary functions of indi- 
 vidual growth, but they are none the less valuable, and in some cases 
 they are of transcendent importance. They are worthy of grateful 
 recognition, and should be ranked high upon the roll of beneficent ul- 
 terior purposes of the Creator of life, and in harmony with the larger 
 design of His providence. In this same sense the ripening of individual 
 Christianity produces a subtle change in the spirit and tone of social 
 life, a sweet fragrance of sympathy, a robust growth of principle, a 
 waving harvest of beneficent reforms which, although not the first-fruits 
 of the growth of Christianity in the individual soul, may yet be regarded 
 as the secondary results of Christian effort, representing what we have 
 called the larger scope of Christian missions. 
 
 This extended scope of missions reveals itself at first as an almost 
 unconscious product of Christian effort ; it comes more as a surprise 
 than as a result definitely planned for ; but as time goes on the new- 
 
Chemical Laboratory. Pharmaceutical Laboratory. Surgical Museum. 
 
 Syrian Protestant College, Beirut. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 51 
 
 born spirit of social reform will become more and more in evidence as 
 a growing force, an aggressive temper, a recognized obligation, and will 
 seek to express itself in changed public opinion 
 
 , . • J ir i. VI ^1 J /• •. Missions stand for 
 
 and m organized effort, with the definite purpose social evolution with 
 of securing permanent transforming results in the Christianity introduced 
 interests of a nobler and more beneficent social 
 order. All this will concern more immediately native society under the 
 culture and stimulus of Christian teachers. It is there that the change 
 in public opinion is needed. A native Christianized society, with its 
 new environment, extending its influence as a silent leavening force 
 far beyond its own limits, will become a centre of unrest, and a theatre 
 of militant aspiration in the direction of higher and truer living. That 
 unconscious influence of Christianity working up from beneath through 
 the encrusted layers of indifEerence and stolidity, through the overlying 
 strata of solidified customs and dominant traditions, develops into a con- 
 scious purpose and an aspiring ardor. It is the story of social evolu- 
 tion with Christianity introduced as a factor; it is the adjustment of 
 society to its higher spiritual and supernatural environment. Unrest 
 awakens into activity ; force develops into energy ; new ideas produce 
 new plans ; Christian influence by a process of spiritual development 
 reaches the stage of Christian effort. 
 
 It is this capacity for expansion, this power of renewal inherent in 
 Christianity, which gives it its larger scope, and which calls for the range 
 and variety of method which at present character- 
 ize the conduct of Christian missions. There is a ^he present variety 
 
 and breadth in mission 
 
 primary and vital call for the method of evangel- methods desirable, 
 ism. It reaches the heart, transforms the life, and 
 lays the foundations of character. There is need also for Christian 
 education. It enlightens, broadens, and quickens the mind, hfts it into 
 a new and stimulating atmosphere, and gives a basis of intelligence 
 moulded and directed by Christian principle. There is a demand also 
 for the department of Uterary production. The awakened mind requires 
 wholesome guidance, especially in the realm of religious thought and 
 moral instruction. An educated mind must be led into all truth, and 
 fortified against the multiform assaults of error if it is to have a perma- 
 nent basis of loyalty which will fit it for trusted leadership. There is 
 urgent need also for the efforts of medical ministry under Christian 
 auspices. It reaches the human heart when it is especially susceptible 
 to the touch of kindness and the presence of sympathy ; it gives an in- 
 telligible reason for recognition, fellowship, and steadfast adherence on 
 the part of the native, and goes far to break down the barriers of 
 
52 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 prejudice. There is a call also, especially in the more barbarous and 
 socially disorganized races, for the method of industrial training com- 
 bined with Christian instruction. It sobers, quiets, and subdues rude 
 and undisciplined natures. It opens to them a new world of happy 
 occupation. It transforms them from irresponsible savages, full of the 
 spirit of lawlessness, into peaceful wage-earners, contributing to the 
 welfare and comfort of society. No one can contemplate these various 
 beneficent channels of missionary activity without recognizing their in- 
 herent tendency to produce social results of the highest value. 
 
 Missionaries should therefore in the main hold to the old lines of 
 direct missionary work here indicated. The social changes will come 
 eventually as the necessary sequence of the enlarged vision, the edu- 
 cated susceptibilities, the quickened moral perceptions, the finer sense 
 of justice, the keener humanitarian instincts, the sweeter power of sym- 
 pathy, the transformed habits, the elevated tastes, the larger aspirations, 
 and the social projects of native Christian communities. The variety 
 of method now known in Christian missions — always, let it be imder- 
 stood, under the dominant control of a Christian purpose — is therefore 
 both justified and sanctioned as leading on with steady and ever cumu- 
 lative power into organized Christian institutions and in the direction 
 of a more beneficent social order. 
 
 Having defined our meaning in the larger scope of missions, we may 
 
 return to our question and ask. Are we right in this optimistic view of 
 
 the subject? Are we justified in advancing it? 
 
 Some a priori argu- Can it be demonstrated? We hope that the an- 
 
 ments in support of this ,...., 
 
 optimistic view. swer to thesc mquiHes Will appear fully in subse- 
 quent lectures. It is, after all, largely a question 
 of fact. At the present stage of our discussion, and in anticipation of 
 the argument of facts, something at least can be said in the line of 
 theoretical justification of the position we have taken. There are argu- 
 ments of an a priori nature, and others based upon history and analogy 
 and legitimate deduction, which may help to prepare our minds to give 
 a welcome credence to any confirmation which may come from the 
 subsequent presentation of actual results. We purpose to present some 
 preliminary considerations which will awaken a natural expectation of 
 social benefits in connection with Christian missions, and shall hope 
 later on in the course to confirm these anticipations by an array of facts 
 which will carry thorough conviction to our minds. 
 
 We may note at the outset that there is at least a striking suggestive- 
 ness in the fact of the terrible and undeniable solidarity of the race in 
 its universal fall, involving not only each individual, but society in its 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 63 
 
 collective aspects. There is a sweep and power in the social collapse 
 which has come upon all ages and has affected all strata of society, which 
 suggest a strong probability that the remedial res- 
 cue and uplift will reach society as a whole. This The argument from 
 may seem a long way off, but it is manifestly an solidarity, 
 
 ideal towards which the divine plans are steadily 
 working. The Scriptural delineations of the Church and its social 
 5ife are typical of what the hfe of the whole world would be were 
 Christianity to reign in human society. If the moral defection and 
 disintegration of society is so complete, if that awful contagion of cus- 
 tom, temper, and opinion which gives such a colossal and persistent 
 solidarity to heathen social life is so pervasive, have we not reason to 
 anticipate that the ideal reconstruction and reconstitution of a re- 
 deemed race will bring us results correspondingly comprehensive and 
 effective? 
 
 May we not also derive another hopeful suggestion from the fact 
 that great material forces which reveal their giant energies in nature, 
 work with a manifold and expansive power, pro- 
 
 . . , . . The argument from 
 
 ducmg results along various lines of sequences? analogy based upon the 
 The sum of these ramifying and permeating influ- expansive power of 
 
 , , - , . , . material forces. 
 
 ences reveals a largeness of scope which, reasoning 
 from analogy, it would be natural to expect in corresponding spiritual 
 forces at work in the realm of their special activity. Electricity may 
 act to produce a variety of results. The sum of its power is manifold. 
 It may purify and illumine. It may destroy and paralyze. It may 
 give motive power and show itself to be a fountain of marvelous energy. 
 It does not move along one single straight line of sequences. Its hid- 
 den energy may be applied in different directions for the accomplish- 
 ment of widely divergent ends. The same may be said of the princi- 
 ple of hfe, from which springs growth, beauty, health, strength, and all 
 the higher experiences of consciousness. The power of gravitation may 
 hold the planets, and at the same time make steady the earth's surface 
 and give fixedness to all things thereon. Other illustrations of the 
 manifold and far-reaching influence of great forces in other realms 
 might be mentioned, but those we have stated are sufficient to awaken 
 the inquiry whether this characteristic would not hold true in the spirit- 
 ual realm, and also whether it is likely that such a magnificent force as 
 Christianity would be confined in its influence to one straight line of 
 sequences. Is it not rather a foregone conclusion, based upon proba- 
 ble analogy, that Christianity is beyond them all in the sweep of its 
 influence and the manifold scope of its activity? It is a savor of life 
 
54 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 unto life, and also a savor of death unto death. It introduces the 
 mysterious and indestructible energy of spiritual life into the soul's de- 
 velopment. It touches heart and mind and will. It evolves charac- 
 ter. It introduces new relationships and new obligations. It estab- 
 hshes new institutions and new ideals. It stirs new aspirations and 
 presents a new goal of destiny. Its presence produces far-reaching 
 and manifold results, which ramify through all social life and touch 
 literally every phase of human existence. 
 
 There is still another suggestive lesson based upon analogy. Can 
 
 there be any doubt of the larger scope of the forces of moral evil? 
 
 How penetrating, how omnipresent, how universal 
 
 Another argument from ... . ■ t; -i • ..i. -r y • -, 
 
 analogy based upon IS their mystenous sway ! If evil is thus gifted with 
 the larger scope of the Capacity of Overlapping itself and spreading its 
 maUgn power through every channel of human in- 
 fluence, are we not justified in at least hoping and expecting that the 
 same capacity of expansion and the same breadth of grasp shall char- 
 acterize the great remedial force which God has planted in human life 
 and experience? Is there any question, moreover, as to the larger 
 scope of the dominant religions of the world other than Christianity? 
 Is not the Oriental world a visible, tangible evidence that non-Christian 
 religions have the power to impress themselves mightily upon social 
 life, to mould its institutions after their own ideals, to cast their 
 shadows far and wide over the fairest regions of the earth, to shape 
 the social destiny and determine the economic and ethical environment 
 of hundreds of millions of our fellow-men? If, then, the expansive in- 
 fluence of human religions is so powerful to penetrate and control the 
 social evolution of the lands where they prevail, can we doubt that 
 Christian forces are endowed with the same capacity? Is it not a fore- 
 gone conclusion that Christian missions will in time reverse the social 
 tendencies of lands in which they are planted and bring in a new and 
 nobler era? 
 
 We have also a lesson from religious history, the suggestiveness of 
 
 which is at once vivid and pointed. The divine legislation of the Old 
 
 Testament was strikingly sociological in its spirit. 
 
 What the divine legiaia- Nq one Can read the Mosaic code, given with a 
 
 tion o{ the Old Tes- ,...,, . 
 
 tament suggests. distinctively theocratic sanction, without recogniz- 
 ing that many of its provisions and requirements 
 were directed to the welfare and control of society as such. These 
 were addressed to Israel as a chosen nation, but they reveal the divine 
 thought concerning social obligations, and the divine ideal with regard 
 to social reJationships. Individual rights were protected, but at the 
 
Duff College and Group of Students, Calcutta, India. 
 
 Formerly known as the Free Church of Scotland Institution. Founded by 
 
 Dr. Duff in 1830, and consists of the College proper and a High School. 
 
 Pupils in College, 457, and in School, 529, making a total of 986. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 55 
 
 same time the common welfare was carefully considered and planned 
 for. There was a studied defense of the rights of the poor, the en- 
 feebled, and the oppressed. Social wrongs were to be punished, and 
 the welfare of society was to be diligently studied and conserved.i If 
 we find such a measure of attention to the interests of associate life in 
 this early and incomplete stage of revelation, is it not a necessary in- 
 ference that the spirit of the New Testament dispensation is upon even 
 a higher plane of consideration for the welfare of a society which is 
 expected to be permeated by Christian principle? ^ 
 
 The same lesson of the large and penetrating scope of Christianity 
 is enforced also by the history of what it has actually accomplished in 
 the world just in this line of all-pervasive control. 
 The national and social life of Christendom, what- The argument from 
 ever blemishes and sorrowful defects we may find historic achievement, 
 in it, is a standing evidence of the elevating power 
 of Christian principles, and there is no mightier protest against the vices 
 and wrongs of society in Christendom than is made by Christianity 
 itself. There is no more vigorous warfare against iniquity and evil than 
 that instituted and pushed under Christian auspices. Whatever of re- 
 lief and purification is to be found in Christendom is due directly or 
 indirectly to the influence of Christianity. The altruistic scope of be- 
 nevolent and philanthropic endeavor is due, at least in its systematic 
 and sustained form, to the inspiration of biblical teachings and the 
 power of Christ's spirit. Then, in the wider realm of history, how 
 many salutary reforms can be traced to a Christian origin! The re- 
 medial social legislation of Christendom, the overthrow of the feudal 
 system, the revolt against slavery, the mitigation of the sufferings of 
 war, the extension of the privileges of education, the thousand agencies 
 of rescue, relief, and amelioration of misery and suffering, are all 
 traceable in large measure to the power of Christian principle.^ All 
 
 1 Fairbairn, " Religion in History and Modern Life," pp. 127-130. 
 
 2 " The theocracy which God commanded Moses to set up embraced everything 
 that a nation needs ; therefore all departments of government. The prophets spoke 
 of Messiah's kingdom as still greater, embracing the temporal as well as the spirit- 
 ual welfare of the nations. Our Lord's first sermon in Nazareth confirmed that opin- 
 ion, as it spoke of political and social reforms for the benefit of the poor and oppressed. 
 Christ's kingdom was not to be of this world, full of armed men to compel submis- 
 sion to unjust laws. The sum of the prophets' teaching indicates a kingdom without 
 sin, without fmerty, without oppression, without ignorance, and a righteous one full 
 of joy! Jesus Christ said He came to set up that kingdom. He promised a hun- 
 dredfold in thh life, and in the world to come eternal life."— The Rev. Timothy 
 Richard (E. B. M.), Shanghai. 
 
 3 Adams, " Civilization During the Middle Ages," pp. 50-64. Cf. Storrs, 
 
56 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the brighter aspects of Christendom to-day are but a demonstra- 
 tion of the larger scope of Christianity. Now what has been done, 
 albeit as yet very imperfectly, in Christendom, can and will be done 
 through the power of Christianity if once planted and thoroughly es- 
 tablished in non-Christian lands.i It impinges inevitably at so many 
 points upon social life and experience, its commands are so far-reach- 
 ing and so varied in their application, that if properly obeyed a general 
 and transforming influence is assured. How much the Bible speaks 
 of the heart and the body, of husbands and wives, of parents and chil- 
 dren, of rulers and subjects, of manhood and womanhood, of the sick, 
 the sorrowing, the poor, the distressed, the afflicted, and the wronged! 
 How it challenges motives and searches the secret springs of action! 
 How it adjusts various relationships, and calls for justice, truth, sin- 
 cerity, honesty, fidehty, gentleness, patience, sympathy, and love in a 
 thousand varied relationships and emergencies of life! The reUgion 
 of the Bible is intended to face actual conditions in the world. It is 
 realistic, uncompromising, indefatigable. It works with untiring per- 
 sistency towards the attainment of its ideals, and it never will rest until 
 man, both individually and socially, is redeemed. 
 
 It is instructive to note that the spiritual purport of the Old Testa- 
 ment was gradually revealed, and but dimly apprehended by Israel. 
 The Messianic significance of prophecy and sym- 
 
 World-wide social re- -, iz-iz-n 
 
 demption the cuimin- bol grew clearer and clearer as the fulfillment drew 
 ating thought of the jje^r ; yet those for whose instruction these revela- 
 
 New Testament. . i i i r i i • i 
 
 tions were given grasped them but feebly, with a 
 faint recognition of their import, and a faltering faith in their reality. 
 The Messiah at length appeared, and the old dispensation culminated 
 in the Incarnation and the atoning work of Christ. So also the reve- 
 lation of the all-inclusive scope of redemption was gradually imparted, 
 and not until Christ Himself had come was it announced in such ex- 
 plicit and emphatic terms that all doubt should have been forever im- 
 possible. The Jewish Church could not grasp the conception of a 
 universal extension of Gospel privileges. The Church of the Apostolic 
 era was inspired with the grandeur of this conception, but it seemed 
 subsequently to fade largely from the consciousness of believers, and 
 to have been revived in the era of modem missions. The Church as 
 yet realizes only imperfectly the significance of the missionary aims of 
 
 " The Divine Origin of Christianity Indicated by its Historical Effects," Lectures 
 V.-IX. 
 
 1 Cf. " Christian Missions in Asia," by the Rev. Timothy Richard, The Baptist 
 Missionary Review (Madras), March, 1895, pp. 81-93. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 57 
 
 Christianity, and still more imperfectly does it grasp the larger, fuller 
 scope of mission effort as a world-wide plan of social redemption. 
 
 This stupendous conception of the religious and social regeneration 
 of the world is, in fact, the Messianic promise of the New Testament. 
 It bears substantially the same relation to the New Testament era that 
 the Messianic idea did to the Old Testament dispensation. It looks 
 forward to a Christian fullness of time, when the great, crowning thought 
 of God in the New Testament shall be revealed. The culminating 
 word of the Old Testament was " Messiah." The culminating word of 
 the New Testament is " Redemption." The one was preparatory ; the 
 other is its complement, and expressive of its ultimate purpose. As the 
 iirst was the gradual gift of centuries of divine revelation, so the latter 
 will no doubt be unfolded in the gradual fulfillment of God's advanc- 
 ing plans. The coming of the Messiah was the fruition and bloom 
 of Old Testament promise. A world-wide redemption, or social recon- 
 struction in harmony with Christian ideals, will be the fruition and 
 bloom of New Testament hope. The "missionary spirit," as it is 
 familiarly, and possibly somewhat tritely called, is in reahty a majestic 
 sentiment. It is a living, working faith in prophecy. It is an earnest, 
 practical recognition of the reality of God's promises. It is not only 
 enthusiasm for humanity ; it is enthusiasm for God. It is, in the ex- 
 perience of the beheving Christian, the counterpart of inspired prophecy. 
 It is the response of the heart to the divine meaning of history, the 
 higher destiny of humanity, and the power of the Almighty to vindicate 
 His sovereignty amidst the clouds and darkness of these troubled cen- 
 turies. It is perhaps the highest tribute which the human heart can 
 pay to Christ as the Master of history and the Ruler of human destiny. 
 It is the logical and full complement of the Incarnation, Sacrifice, and 
 Resurrection of our Lord. A risen Saviour implies a redeemed world ; 
 a reigning Lord is the surety of the universal triumph of His 
 kingdom.! 
 
 The unfolding of the divine purpose has often revealed a breadth of 
 meaning and a largeness of scope that have been a surprise even to 
 the most alert student of providence. God's plans may seem at first to 
 be running in narrow channels, but as time passes they expand, until at 
 
 1 "If, therefore, Christianity be a religion coming from God and designed for the 
 world, it must have for its final magnificent function to benefit peoples as well as per- 
 sons ; not merely to sequester from barbarous wastes occasional gardens, bright in 
 bloom and delightful in fragrance, but to refashion continents ; not merely to instruct 
 and purify households, but to make the entire race, in the end, a household of God." 
 —Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D. 
 
58 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 last they widen like the sea. It was so in the case of the Incarnation 
 and the Atonement, and it will be so in the case of the universal procla- 
 mation of the Gospel and the world-wide extension 
 The expansion of the of redemption. In the light of rehgious history 
 prom°Mof serTpTrre.^ it is perhaps hardly to be expected that the faith 
 of the Church should grasp at once the scope 
 and significance of missions. The salvation of some individual souls 
 among all peoples of the earth is recognized as the clear teaching of 
 Scripture, and there is a general faith that some will be saved out of 
 all nations ; but that the Gospel is to triumph, that the kingdom of 
 God is to advance, and all nations are to be included, is a conception 
 which, it is to be feared, is sadly unreal to the average consciousness of 
 the Church. Christianity is still playing the r61e of John the Baptist 
 crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Christen- 
 dom, like Israel of old, is even yet living in an atmosphere of spiritual 
 unreality. The historic significance of the kingdom is still too dimly 
 discerned. 
 
 Nothing is more true, however, than that the devotion and loyalty of 
 
 the Chvuch to her missionary calling is the secret of her success, the 
 
 divinely appointed method of her advance both 
 
 Mission service is the -i t ^i • i -ii /• j t 
 
 secret of inspiration at home and abroad. In this she will find her 
 and power to the joy^ her inspiration, her endowment of power, her 
 meed of honor, her irresistible claim to the world's 
 reverence, and her final, unanswerable apologetic. It is in fact her 
 raison d'itre, her highest and divinely emphasized mission in human 
 history. Devotion to this sublime calling will be her password to an 
 unchallenged place among the most influential forces which sway and 
 mould the progress of the race. Nothing would so fully "vindicate 
 the claim of Christianity to stimulate, to inspire, to lead the world's 
 progress." The reflex influence of this service would fan the graces of 
 the Christian life and make the Church aflame with thoughts and deeds 
 which were Spirit-born and God-given l^ If the Church could do its 
 work under the stimulus of a faith-quickened vision of a triumphant 
 Gospel and a redeemed humanity, it would feel the pulses of a new 
 life, and cheerfully give itself to sacrifice and toil, which God would 
 quickly and grandly reward. How different is the reality! The 
 great thoughts of Christ are still misinterpreted and limited by the nar- 
 row conceptions which many of us entertain of their significance. 
 World patriotism is still a dim spiritual ideal which we contemplate 
 
 1 Cf. article by Miss Jane Addams on " The Subjective Necessity for Social Set- 
 tlements," in " Philanthropy and Social Progress " (New York, Crowell & Co., 1893). 
 
Principal Wm. Miller, LL.D., 
 Madras Christian College. 
 
 President Daniel Bliss, D.D., 
 Syrian Protestant College. 
 
 Principal J. Hector, D.D., 
 DufE College, Calcutta. 
 
 President G. Washburn, D.D., 
 Robert College, Constantinople. 
 
 Four College Presidents. 
 
THE SOCIOLOGICAL SCOPE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 59 
 
 with patronizing incredulity. Love of humanity is still cut up into 
 sections and fragments, and has only a partial hold upon our hearts. 
 Service of the race is still regarded as coextensive with service of some 
 contiguous portion of the human family. The one blood, of which God 
 made all men before they were separated by national distinctions, seems 
 to have lost its power to pulsate through our veins, yet the permanent 
 life of mankind flows in that blood. It is humanity which remains 
 while nations rise and fall. He who works for the human race under 
 the stimulus of a generous and sympathetic insight into the splendid 
 ideals of Christ, labors for results which are permanent, beneficent, and 
 divine. 
 
LITERATURE AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE I 
 
 The literature bearing upon Lecture I. is so extensive that no attempt is made to give more than a 
 partial list. What is presented will be classified as follows : 
 
 I. Sociology. In this connection only bibliographies will be indicated, where full lists may be found. 
 II. Christianity and Civilization. Books referring more or less directly to Christianity in its 
 
 relations to the moral and social progress of mankind as a civilizing force in history. 
 III. Missions and Social Progress. Books containing data bearing upon the influence of Chris- 
 tian missions as a factor in the social elevation of the human race. 
 
 N. Y.=New York. 
 P.= Philadelphia. 
 
 C.=: Chicago. 
 L.= London. 
 II. d.=:no date. 
 
 B.= Boston. 
 £.= Edinburgh. 
 
 L BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF SOCIOLOGY 
 
 The Reader's Guide in Economic, Social, 
 and Political Science. Edited by 
 R. R. BOWKER and GEORGE ILES. 
 L. and N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
 1891. 
 
 Socialism and Social Reform. By Pro- 
 fessor R. T. Ely. With "Biblio- 
 graphical Appendix." N. Y. and B., 
 T. Y. Crowell & Co., 1894. 
 
 Bibliographia Sociologica. (An exten- 
 sive bibliography of French, German, 
 and English literature, especially full 
 in its references to current periodicals.) 
 By H. La Fontaine and P. Otlet. 
 Published in successive issues in Brus- 
 sels, Belgium. 
 
 The Annals of the American Academy of 
 Political and Social Science, P., and 
 The American Journal of Sociology, C. 
 (In both will be found full bibliogra- 
 phies and indices of current periodical 
 literature. ) 
 
 Handbook of Sociological Information 
 for New York. (Contains a useful 
 bibliography of sociology.) By W. H. 
 ToLMAN and W. I. Hull. N. Y., 
 City Vigilance League, 105 East 
 Twenty-second Street, 1894. 
 
 Practical Christian Sociology. (Contains 
 a reading course in practical Christian 
 sociology, and also an index of biblical 
 references of a sociological character.) 
 By Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts. N. Y., 
 Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1895. 
 
 Books for Beginners in the Study of 
 Christian Sociology and Social Econom- 
 ics. (A little pamphlet prepared by 
 Professor Graham Taylor.) Address 
 Congregational Sunday-school and 
 Publishing Society, 175 Wabash Ave- 
 nue, Chicago. 
 
 An Introduction to the Study of the De- 
 pendent, Defective, and Delinquent 
 Classes. (Contains many bibliograph- 
 ical references of value.) By Pro- 
 fessor C. R. Henderson. B., D. C. 
 Heath & Co., 1893. 
 
 American Charities: A Study in Phi- 
 lanthropy and Econotnics, (Contains a 
 bibliographical index.) By Amos G. 
 Warner. N. Y. and B., T. Y. Crowell 
 & Co., 1894. 
 
 The Principles of Sociology. (Contains 
 a bibliography. ) By Profess or Frank- 
 lin H. GiDDiNGS. N. Y., Macmillan 
 & Co., 1896. 
 
 60 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 61 
 
 Introduction to Sociology. (Contains a 
 select bibliography.) By Professor 
 Arthur Fairbanks. N. Y., Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1896. 
 
 The Principles of Sociology, vol. iii. 
 (Contains an extensive list of " Titles 
 of Works Referred to," many of them 
 pertaining to the section on " Ecclesi- 
 astical Institutions.") By Herbert 
 Spencer. N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 
 1897. 
 
 Literature of Theology. (Contains bibli- 
 ographical sections on missions and 
 sociology.) By John Fletcher 
 
 Hurst. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 
 1896. 
 
 Theological Propadeutic. (Contains a 
 bibliography of missionary literature, 
 ajid also a selected list for a ministerial 
 library, with section on sociology, 
 compiled by Rev. Samuel Macauley 
 Jackson.) By Professor Philip 
 SCHAFF. Second edition. N. Y., 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894. 
 
 Encyclopedia of Social Reforms. (Con- 
 tains bibliographical references to 
 social sciences.) In press. N. Y., 
 Funk & WagnaUs Co., 1897. 
 
 IL CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION 
 
 Adams, George Burton, Civilization 
 During the Middle Ages. N. Y., 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894. 
 
 Alden, Henry Mills, God in His 
 World: An Interpretation. N. Y., 
 Harper & Bros., 1880. 
 
 Aubrey, W. H. S., The Rise and Growth 
 of the English Nation: with Special 
 Reference to Epochs and Crises. 3 vols. 
 L., Elliot Stock; N. Y., D. Appleton 
 & Co., 1896. 
 
 Barnes, Rev. Albert, Lectures on the 
 Evidences of Christianity in the Nine- 
 teenth Century. (Ely Lectures.) N. Y., 
 Harper & Bros., 1868. 
 
 Barry, Rev. Alfred, The Ecclesiastical 
 Expansion of England in the Growth 
 of the Anglican Communion. (Hul- 
 sean Lectures for 1894-95.) L. and 
 N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 1895. 
 
 Bascom, Professor John, Social Theory: 
 A Grouping of Social Facts and Prin- 
 ciples. N. Y, and B., T, Y. Crowell 
 & Co., 1895. 
 
 Bascom, Professor John, Evolution and 
 Religion; or. Faith asaPartofa Com- 
 plete Cosmic System. N. Y., G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, 1897. 
 
 Blackmar, Professor Frank W., The 
 Story of Human Progress: A Brief 
 History of Civilization. Published by 
 the author. Agents, Ketcheson & 
 Reeves, Leavenworth, Kan., 1896. 
 
 Blaikie, Professor W. G., The Adapta- 
 tion of Bible Religion to the Needs and 
 Nature of Man. (Present-Day Tracts. ) 
 L., Religious Tract Society; N. Y. 
 and C, Fleming H. Revell Co., n. d. 
 
 Blaikie, Professor W. G., The Family: 
 Its Scriptural Ideal and its Modem 
 Assailants. (Present-Day Tracts.) L., 
 Religious Tract Society ; N. Y. and 
 C, Fleming H. Revell Co., u. d. 
 
 Brace, Charles Loring, Gesta Christi; 
 or, A History of Humane Progress 
 Under Christianity. N. Y., A. C. 
 Armstrong & Son, 1893. 
 
 Bradford, Rev. Amory H., Heredity 
 and Christian Problems, L.and N. Y. , 
 Macmillan & Co., 1895. 
 
 Brown, J., The Pilgrim Fathers of New 
 England and their Puritan Succes- 
 sors. New edition. L., Religious 
 Tract Society, 1897. 
 
 Bruce, W. S., The Ethics of the Old 
 Testament. E., T. & T. Clark, 1895. 
 
 Bryce, James, The Holy Roman Empire. 
 L. and N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 1889. 
 
 Bunsen, C. C. J., Christianity and Man- 
 kind. 7 vols. L. and N. Y., Long- 
 mans, Green & Co., 1854. 
 
 Bunsen, C. C. J., God in History; or. 
 The Progress of Man's Faith in the 
 Moral Order of the World. 3 vols. L., 
 Longmans, Green & Co., 1868-70; 
 N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1870. 
 
 Byington, Rev. Ezra Hoyt, The 
 Puritan in England and New Eng- 
 land. B., Roberts Bros., 1896. 
 
 Cairns, Rev. Principal, The Success of 
 Christianity and Modem Explanations 
 of It. (Present-Day Tracts.) L., 
 Religious Tract Society ; N. Y. and C, 
 Fleming H. Revell Co., n..d. 
 
 Cairns, Rev. Principal, Is the Evolu- 
 tion of Christianity from Mere Natu- 
 ral Sources Credible? (Present-Day 
 Tracts.) L., Religious Tract Society; 
 N. Y. and C, Fleming H. Revell Co., 
 n. d. 
 
 Caldecott, Alfred, English Coloniza- 
 tion and Empire. N. Y., Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1891. 
 
 Campbell, Douglas, The Puritan in 
 Holland, England, and America. 
 N. Y., Harper & Bros., 1892. 
 
62 
 
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 Carpenter, Bishop W. Boyd, The 
 Ptrmanent Elements of Religion. L. 
 and N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 1889. 
 
 Carr, Rev. Arthur, The Church and 
 the Roman Empire. N. Y., A. D. F. 
 Randolph & Co., 1887. 
 
 Chastel, Stephen, The Charity of the 
 Primitive Churches. (Translated by 
 G. A. Matile.) P., J. B. Lippincott, 
 
 1857. 
 
 Cheetham, S., a History of the Chris- 
 tian Church During the First Six 
 Centuries. L. and N. Y., Macmillan 
 & Co., 1894. 
 
 Christianity Practically Applied. (The 
 Discussions of the International Chris- 
 tian Conference held in Chicago, 
 October 8-14, 1893, in connection with 
 the World's Congress Auxiliary of 
 the World's Columbian Exposition, and 
 under the auspices and direction of the 
 Evangelical Alliance for the United 
 States.) a vols, i The General Confer- 
 ence; The Section Conferences. N. Y., 
 The Baker & Taylor Co., 1894. 
 
 Christus Imperator. Edited by Dean 
 Stubbs. L. and N. Y., Macmillan & 
 Co., 1894. 
 
 Church, Dean, The Gifts of Civiliza- 
 tion, and Other Sermons and Lectures. 
 L. and N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 1892. 
 
 Church, Dean, Occasional Papers. 2 
 vols. L. and N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 
 1897. 
 
 Church, Dean, The Beginning of the 
 Middle Ages. L. and N. Y., The 
 Macmillan Co., 1897. 
 
 Cowan, Rev. Henry, The Scottish 
 Church in Christendom. Being the 
 Baird Lecture for 1895. L., A. & C. 
 Black, 1897. 
 
 CoYLE, Rev. John Patterson, The 
 Spirit in Literature and Life. B. and 
 N. Y., Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896. 
 
 Crawford, Rev. John Howard, The 
 Brotherhood of Mankind. E., T. & T. 
 Clark, 1895. 
 
 Creighton, Bishop, Persecution and 
 Tolerance. L. and N. Y., Longmans, 
 Green & Co., 1895. 
 
 Crosleigh, Rev. C, Christianity Judged 
 by its Fruits. L., S. P. C. K. ; N. Y., 
 E. & J. B. Young & Co., n. d. 
 
 Davies, Rev. G. S., St. Paul in Greece. 
 (In series of The Heathen World and 
 St. Paul.) L., S. P. C. K. ; N. Y., 
 E. & J. B. Young & Co., n. d. 
 
 DoDS, Rev. Makcvs, Erasmus, and Other 
 Essays. L., Hodder & Stoughton, 
 1892. 
 
 Dohertv, Rev. Robert Remington, 
 Torch-Bearers of Christendom: the 
 
 Light They Shed and the Shadows They 
 Cast. N. Y., Eaton & Mains, 1896. 
 
 Dorchester, Rev. Daniel, The Prob^ 
 lem of Religious Progress. Revised 
 edition. N. Y., Hunt & Eaton, 1894. 
 
 Dorchester, Rev. Daniel, Christian- 
 ity Vindicated by its Enemies. N. Y., 
 Eaton & Mains, 1896. 
 
 Drummond, Principal James, Via, 
 Veritas, Vita : Lectures on Christianity 
 in its Most Simple and Intelligible 
 Form. L. and E., Williams & Nor- 
 gate, 1894. 
 
 Eaton, A. W., The Heart of the Creeds: 
 Historical Religion in the Light of 
 Modem Thought. N. Y., Thomas 
 Whittaker, 1897. 
 
 Emerton, Ephraim, An Introduction 
 to the Study of the Middle Ages. B., 
 Ginn & Co., 1895. 
 
 Faber, Rev. Ernst, Civilization a Fruit 
 of Christianity. Shanghai, Presbyte- 
 rian Mission Press, n. d. 
 
 Fairbairn, Principal A. M., Religion 
 in History and in Modem Life. N. Y., 
 A. D. F. Randolph & Co., 1894. 
 
 Fairbairn, Principal A. M., The City of 
 God: A Series of Discussions in Reli- 
 gion. L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1894, 
 
 Farrar, Dean, The Witness of History to 
 Christ. L. and N. Y., Macmillan & 
 Co., 1870. 
 
 Farrar, Dean, The Early Days of 
 Christianity. L. , Cassell & Co ; N. Y., 
 E. p. Dutton & Co., 1882. 
 
 Fisher, Professor G. P., The Begin- 
 nings of Christianity. N. Y., Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1877. 
 
 Fisher, Professor G. P., The Christian 
 Religion. N. Y., Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, 1884. 
 
 Fisher, Professor G. P., Brief History 
 of the Nations and Their Progress in 
 Civilization, N. Y., American Book 
 Co., 1896. 
 
 Ford, Rev. David B., New England's 
 Struggles for Religious Liberty. P., 
 American Baptist Publication Society, 
 1896. 
 
 Fremantle, Rev. W. H., The World 
 as a Subject of Redemption, L. and 
 N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 1895. 
 
 GiRDLESTONE, Rev. CHARLES, Christen- 
 dom : Sketched from History in the 
 Light of Holy Scripture. L., Sampson 
 Low, Marston & Co., 1870. 
 
 Gladden, Rev. Washington, The 
 Church and the Kingdom. N. Y. and 
 C, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1894. 
 
 Gore, Rev. Charles, The Mission of 
 the Church. L., John Murray, 189a. 
 
 Grau, Rev. R. F., The Goal of the 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 63 
 
 Human Race. L., Simpkin, Marshall, 
 Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1892. 
 
 Gregg, Rev. David, The Makers of the 
 American Republic. N. Y., E. B. 
 Treat, 1896. 
 
 Gregory, Rev. J., Puritanism in the 
 Old World and in the New. L., 
 James Clarke & Co., 1895 ; N. Y. and 
 C, Fleming H. Revell Co., 1896. 
 
 GuizOT, F., The History of Civilization 
 from the Fall of the Roman Empire 
 to the Frena/i Revolution. 4 vols. 
 (Translated by William Hazlitt.) 
 N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1894. 
 
 Hardy, E. G,, Christianity and the 
 Roman Government. L. and N. Y., 
 Longmans, Green & Co., 1894. 
 
 Harnack, Professor Adolph, Chris- 
 tianity and History. (Translated by 
 Thomas Bailey Saunders.) L. and 
 N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 1896. 
 
 Harris, Rev. Samuel, a lecture on 
 The Christian Doctrine of Human 
 Progress Contrasted with the Natural- 
 istic in Christianity and Scepticism. 
 (Boston Lectures, 1870.) B., Con- 
 gregational Publishing Society, 1870. 
 
 Harris, Rev. Samuel, The Self-Revela- 
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 1891. 
 
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 Lent in London {A'). (A course of 
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 The following articles in current periodicals, on the influence of Christian teaching upon social 
 progress, will be found useful. 
 Christ in History. By Principal A. M. The Presidential Address at the Annual 
 Fairbairn. The Biblical World, Meeting of the Christian Social Union, 
 C, December, 1895. Cambridge,England, i8g4. By Bishop 
 
66 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Westcott. The Economic Review, 
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 Sociological Christianity a Necessity. 
 The Methodist Review, N. Y., May, 
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 Christianity and Modem Civilisation. 
 By D. S. Gregory, D.D. The 
 Homiletic Review, N. Y., March, 
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 The Triumph of Christianity. By the 
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 The Bible at Home and Abroad. The 
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 The Social Ethics of Jesus. By Pro- 
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 Christian Sociology. By Professor 
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 By President CHARLES W. Super, 
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 How were the Christians of Various Con- 
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 By the Rev. K. S. Macdonald, D.D 
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 Dogmatic Theology and Civilization. 
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 Apostolic and Modem Missions. By 
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 Political Science and Christian Missions 
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 Hulbert. The Presbyterian and 
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 Is Christianity Fitted to Become the 
 World-Religion ? By the Rev. John 
 Henry Barrows, D.D. The Ameri- 
 can Journal of Theology, C, April, 
 1897, pp. 404-423- 
 
 m. MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
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 the evangelistic results of missions.) 
 
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 Adams, Rev. James Edward, The 
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 Bailey, Wellesley C., A Glimpse at 
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 1890. 
 
 Bailey, Wellesley C, The Lepers of 
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 Missions. E. and L., William Black- 
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 The Personal Life of David Living- 
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 and C, Fleming H. Revell Co. 
 
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 Bliss, Rev. Edwin Munsell (Editor), 
 The Encyclopedia of Missions. N. Y., 
 Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1891. 
 
 Bombay: Report of Decennial Conference, 
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 Society's Steam Press, BycuUa, 1893. 
 
 Calvert, Rev. James, and Williams, 
 Rev. Thomas, Fiji and the Fijians. 
 2 vols. L., Hodder & Stoughton ; 
 N. Y., G. Routledge & Sons, 1870. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 67 
 
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 1893. 
 
 Johnston, Rev. James, Missionary 
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 JosA, Rev. F. P. L., The Apostle of the 
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 King, Joseph, Ten Decades: The Aus- 
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68 
 
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 Lawrence, Rev. Edward A., Modem 
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 Leavens, Rev. Philo F., The Planting 
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 LiGGlNS, Rev. John, The . Great Value 
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 LiGHTFOOT, Bishop, Historical Essays. 
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 Lowe, Rev. John, Primer of Medical 
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 edition. L., T. Fisher Unwin, 1887. 
 
 Macfarlane, Rev. S,, Among the Can- 
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 Maclear, Rev. G. F., Apostles of 
 Mediceval Europe. L., Macmillan 
 & Co., 1869. (A reprint of selected 
 chapters from this book has been pub- 
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 Apostles of Mediceval Europe, for use 
 of the Student Volunteer Movement. 
 N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 1897.) 
 
 Maclear, Rev. G. F., A History of 
 Christian Missions during the Middle 
 Ages. L. and N. Y., Macmillan 
 & Co., 1863. 
 
 March, Rev. Daniel, Morning Light 
 in Many Lands. B. and C, Con- 
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 Marshman, J. C., The Story of Carey, 
 Marshman, and Ward. 2 vols. L., 
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 Mason, Canon A. J., The Mission of 
 St. Augustine to England. Cam- 
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 Miohelsen, Rev. Oscar, Cannibals 
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 1893- 
 
 MiLUM, Rev. John, Thomas Birch Free- 
 man, Missionary Pioneer to Ashanti, 
 Dahomey, and Egba. N. Y. and C, 
 Fleming H. Revell Co., n. d. 
 
 Missions at Home and Abroad. (Papers 
 and addresses presented at the World's 
 Congress of Missions, October 2-4, 
 1893, compiled by Rev. E. M. 
 Wherry.) N. Y., American Tract 
 Society, 1895. 
 
 MtJLLER, Professor F. Max, On Mis- 
 
 sions. (A lecture delivered in West- 
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 N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1874. 
 
 Murdoch, John, Indian Missionary 
 Manual. L., James Nisbet & Co., 
 1895. 
 
 Nixon, Oliver W., How Marcus 
 Whitman Saved Oregon. C, Star 
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 Noel, Hon. Roden, Livingstone in 
 Africa. L., Ward & Downey, 1895. 
 
 Page, Jesse, Among the Maoris; or. 
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 Page, Jesse, Samuel Crowther, the Slave 
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 1892. 
 
 Page, Jesse, Amid Greenland Snows ; 
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 Paton, Rev. John G., Autobiography of . 
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 Pettee, Rev. James H., Mr. Ishii and 
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 Pettee, Rev. James H., A Chapter of 
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 (Compiled by Mr. Pettee.) Okayama, 
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 Pierce, Rev. William, The Dominion 
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 Pierson, Rev. Arthur T., The New 
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 Prime, Rev. E. D. G., Forty Years in 
 the Turkish Empire ; or. Memoirs of 
 Rev. William Goodell, D.D. N. Y., 
 Robert Carter, 1875. 
 
 Richard, Rev. Timothy, Historical 
 Evidences of Christianity. (Written 
 for China.) Shanghai, American 
 Presbyterian Mission Press, 1892. 
 
 Robson, William, James Chalmers, 
 Missionary and Explorer. L., 
 S. W. Partridge & Co., 1887. 
 
 Rogers, Rev. J. Guinness, Christ for 
 the World. L., Congregational 
 Union of England and Wales, 1894. 
 
 Satthianadhan, Professor S., Sketches 
 of Indian Christians. L. and Madras, 
 The Christian Literature Society for 
 IndiS, 1896. 
 
 Seelye, Rev. Julius H., Christian 
 Missions. N. Y., Dodd, Mead &Co., 
 1875- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 69 
 
 Shanghai: Records of the Missionary 
 Conference Held in iSff. Shanghai, 
 Presbyterian Mission Press, 1878. 
 
 Shanghai: Records of the Missionary 
 Conference Held in i8go. Shanghai, 
 American Presbyterian Mission Press, 
 1890. 
 
 Smith, Rev. Thomas, Mediceval Mis- 
 sions. E., T. & T. Clark, 1880. 
 
 Smith, Andrew, Short Papers, Chiefly 
 on South African Subjects. Lovedale, 
 South Africa; E., Andrew Elliot, 
 
 1893- 
 
 Smith, George, The Conversion of 
 India from Pantcmus to the Present 
 Time—A.D.iqs-iSgs. N.Y. andC, 
 Fleming H. Revell Co., 1894. 
 
 Smith, George, Fifty Years of Foreign 
 Missions ; or. The Foreign Missions 
 of the Free Church of Scotland, in 
 Their Year of Jubilee, iSygSo. Four- 
 teenth edition. E., John Maclaren 
 & Son; L., J. Nisbet & Co., 1880. 
 
 Smith, George, Short History of Chris- 
 tian Missions. Third edition. E., 
 T. & T. Clark, 1890. 
 
 Smith, George, The Life of Alexander 
 Duff, D.D., LL.D. L., Hodder & 
 Stoughton, 1 88 1. 
 
 Smith, George, The Life of William 
 Carey, D.D., Shoemaker and Mission- 
 ary. L., John Murray, 1888. 
 
 Smith, George, Henry Martyn, Saint 
 and Scholar. L., Religious Tract 
 Society ; N. Y. and C, Fleming H. 
 Revell Co., 1892. 
 
 Smith, Mrs. John James, William 
 Knibb, Missionary in Jamaich. L., 
 Alexander & Shepheard, 1896. 
 
 Spottiswoode, George A. (Editor), 
 The Official Report of the Missionary 
 Conference of the Anglican Com- 
 munion, i8g4. L., S. P. C. K., 1894. 
 
 Stevenson, Rev. William Fleming, 
 The Dawn of the Modem Mission. 
 E., Macniven & Wallace; N. Y., 
 A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1888. 
 
 Stewart, Rev. James, Lovedale, South 
 Africa. E., Andrew Elliot, 1894. 
 
 Storrow, Rev. Edward, Protestant 
 Missions in Pagan Lands. L., 
 John Snow & Co., 1888. 
 
 Strong, Rev. Josiah, The New Era; 
 or. The Coming Kingdom. N. Y., 
 The Baker & Taylor Co., 1893. 
 
 Student Missionary Enterprise (The). 
 A verbatim report of the general 
 meetings and section conferences of 
 the Second International Convention 
 of the Student Volunteer Movement, 
 Detroit, 1894. 80 Institute Place, 
 Chicago. 
 
 Thoburn, Bishop, The Christless 
 Nations. N. Y., Hunt & Eaton, 
 1895. 
 
 Thompson, Rev. Augustus C, Prot- 
 estant Missions: Their Rise and 
 Early Progress. N. Y., Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1894. 
 
 Thompson, Rev. Augustus C, Mora- 
 vian Missions. N. Y., Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, i8go. 
 
 Thomson, W. Burns, Reminiscences of 
 Medical Missionary Work. L., Hod- 
 der & Stoughton, 1895. 
 
 Underhill, Edward Bean, The Prin- 
 ciples and Methods of Missionary 
 Labour. L., Alexander & Shepheard, 
 1896. 
 
 Walrond, T. F., Christian Missions 
 before the Reformation. L., S. P. C. K., 
 
 1873- 
 
 Walz, L., Die Aussere Mission. Darm- 
 stadt, I. Waitz, 1896. 
 
 Warneck, Dr. GusTAV, Outline of the 
 History of Protestant Missions. (Trans- 
 lated from the German by Rev. 
 Thomas Smith.) E., R. W. Hunter, 
 1882. 
 
 Warneck, Dr. Gustav, Modem Mis- 
 sions and Culture. New edition. 
 (Translated from the German by Rev. 
 Thomas Smith.) E., R. W. Hunter, 
 1882. 
 
 Warneck, Dr. Gustav, Evangelische 
 Missionslehre : Ein Missionstheore- 
 tischer Versuch. Gotha, Fr. Andr. 
 Perthes, 1892. 
 
 Warren, William, These for Those: 
 Our Indebtedness to Foreign Missions. 
 Portland, Me., Hoyt, Fogg & Breed, 
 1870. 
 
 Wellcome, Henry S., The Story of 
 Metlakahtla. L. and N. Y., Saxon, 
 1887. 
 
 Williams, Rev. John, Missionary 
 Enterprise in the South Sea Islands. 
 L., John Snow & Co., 1865. 
 
 Williams, Rev. Thomas, and Calvert, 
 Rev. James, Fiji and the Fijians. 
 2 vols. L., Hodder & Stoughton; 
 N. Y., George Rontledge & Sons, 
 1870. 
 
 Wishard, Luther D., A New Pro- 
 gramme of Missions. N. Y. and C, 
 Fleming H. Revell Co., 1895. 
 
 YoNGE, Charlotte M., Life of John 
 Coleridge Patteson, Missionary Bishop 
 of the Melanesian Islands. 2 vols. 
 L. and N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 
 1878. 
 
 Young, Robert, The Success of Chris- 
 tian Missions. L., Hodder & Stough- 
 ton, 1890. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE II 
 
 The extent of this lecture renders any attempt to summarize it impracticable, but 
 the following syllabus indicates the order in which the social evils of the non-Chris- 
 tian world have been treated. 
 
 I.— The Individual Group. (Evils affecting primarily the individual, and 
 secondarily society through the individual.) (l) Intemperance; (2) The Opium 
 Habit; (3) The Gambling Habit; (4) Immoral Vices ; (5) Self-torture ; (6) Suicide; 
 (7) Idleness and Improvidence ; (8) Excessive Pride and Self-exaltation ; (9) Moral 
 Delinquencies. 
 
 II.— The Family Group. (Evils affecting primarily the family, and secon- 
 darily society through the family.) (l) The Degradation of Woman ; (2) Polygamy 
 and Concubinage; (3) Adultery and Divorce; (4) Child Marriage and Widowhood; 
 
 (5) Defective Family Training ; (6) Infanticide. 
 
 III.— The Tribal Group. (Evils which pertain to intertribal relationships, 
 and find their origin in the cruel passions of savage life.) (l) The Traffic in Human 
 Flesh; (2) Slavery; (3) Cannibalism; (4) Human Sacrifices ; (5) Cruel Ordeals ; 
 
 (6) Cruel Punishments and Torture; (7) Brutality in War; (8) Blood Feuds; 
 (9) Lawlessness. 
 
 IV.— The Social Group. (Evils which are incidental to the social relation- 
 ships of uncivilized communities, and are due to lack of intelligence or the force of 
 depraved habit.) (i) Ignorance; (2) Quackery; (3) Witchcraft ; (4) Neglect of the 
 Poor and Sick; (5) Uncivilized and Cruel Customs; (6) Insanitary Conditions; 
 
 (7) Lack of Public Spirit; (8) Mutual Suspicion; (9) Poverty; (10) The Tyranny 
 of Custom; (11) Caste. 
 
 v.— The National Group. (Evils which afflict society through the misuse 
 of the governing power.) (i) Civil Tyranny; (2) Oppressive Taxation ; (3) The 
 Subversion of Legal Rights ; (4) Corruption and Bribery ; (g) Massacre and Pil- 
 lage. 
 
 VI.— The Commercial Group. (Evils incidental to low commercial stan- 
 dards or defective industrial methods.) (1) Lack of Business Confidence; (2) Com- 
 mercial Deceit and Fraud ; (3) Financial Irregularities ; (4) Primitive Industrial 
 Appliances. 
 
 VII.— The Religious Group. (Evils which deprive society of the moral 
 benefits of a pure religions faith and practice.) (i) Degrading Conceptions of the 
 Nature and Requirements of Religion ; (2) Idolatry; (3) Superstition ; (4) Religions 
 Tyraqny and Persecution ; (5) Scandalous Lives of Religious Leaders. 
 
 70 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE 
 NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 
 
 11 
 
" In estimating the adaptations of Christianity to be a world-wide faith in the 
 ages to come, one fact should have decisive weight— that it is the only system of 
 faith of which the world has made trial which combines dogmatic religious beliefs 
 with corresponding principles of morality. It builds ethics on religion. The an- 
 cient religions, excepting that of the Hebrews, which was Christianity in embryo, had 
 no systems of ethics. They did not profess to have any. Ante-Christian ethics, so 
 far as they existed outside of Hebrew literature, were independent of religion. 
 Neither had any radical relation to the other. A Greek or Roman devotee might be 
 guilty of all the crimes and vices known to the criminal code of ancient jurisprudence, 
 and it made no difference to his character as a religionist. He might be the most 
 execrable of mankind in the courts of law, yet he could cross the street into a temple 
 of religion and there be a saint. In the temple of Bacchus or of Venus his very 
 vices were virtues. The identity of morals and religion is a Christian discovery." 
 
 Austin Phelps, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 " Undoubtedly Indian literature contains a large amount of moral teaching, some 
 of which is of a very high order ; but it is a remarkable circumstance, and one which 
 European Christians find it difficult to believe or even to comprehend, that this 
 moral teaching is totally unconnected with religious worship. . . . Morality is sup- 
 posed to consist merely in the discharge of the duties of our caste and station to- 
 wards our fellow-men. . . . Religion, on the other hand, is supposed to rise far 
 above such petty considerations as the social duties, and to consist solely in the wor- 
 ship of the gods by means of the appointed praises, prayers, and observances, in the 
 hope of obtaining thereby union with the Supreme Spirit and final emancipation. 
 The duties of life are never inculcated in any Hindu temple. The discharge of 
 those duties is never represented as enjoined by the gods, nor are any prayers ever 
 offered in any temple for help to enable the worshippers to discharge those duties 
 aright. It would be hard indeed even to conceive the possibility of prayers for 
 purity ever being offered in a Hindu temple to a divinity surrounded by a bevy of 
 dancing-girls. . . . There is no such teaching of morality as this by any Brahman or 
 priest in any temple in all India. Hence we often see religion going in one direc- 
 tion and morality in another. We meet with a moral Hindu who has broken alto- 
 gether away from religion, and, what is still more common, yet still more extraordi- 
 nary, we meet with a devout Hindu who lives a flagrantly immoral life. In the 
 latter case no person sees any inconsistency between the immorality and the devout- 
 ness. Christianity, on the other hand, unites morality to religion by an indissoluble 
 bond. It teaches that the right discharge of our duties to our fellow-men is an es- 
 sential portion of the duty we owe to God, and that the very purpose for which Christ 
 came into the world was ' that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify 
 unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.' " 
 
 Bishop Caldwell, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 7J 
 
LECTURE II 
 * 
 
 THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN 
 WORLD 
 
 The subject before us in this lecture is so vast and complicated that 
 one may well approach it with diffidence and even with dismay. Its 
 range is so immense, and its details involve such a mass of facts, that 
 first-hand treatment of the theme is entirely beyond the grasp of 
 even the most learned student or the most observant traveller. We 
 might well shrink from the responsibility involved were it not for 
 the abundant testimony at our command in current literature, and 
 especially as the result of an extensive private correspondence en- 
 tered upon with the special purpose of securing reliable data from 
 those whose observation and personal experience qualify them to 
 speak with authority. 
 
 It is a theme which should be approached with all humility and so- 
 briety, and treated not with a view to impressionism or with any attempt 
 to exploit the evils of non-Christian society. The 
 aim should be rather to present a faithful and at The proper spirit of 
 the same time unflinching portraiture of the true such an inquiry, 
 state of human society in the less favored nations 
 of the earth. We shall not aim at a highly wrought picture, but rather 
 at a judicial presentation. Whatever of reahsm may characterize it 
 will be fully justified by the facts of the case, and to those who can 
 read between the lines there will be no difficulty in tracing the presence 
 of a darker coloring and a more ghastly background to the picture 
 than the proprieties of the printed page will allow. One thing we 
 shall seek especially to guard against, and that is any attempt either 
 
 73 
 
74 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to magnify the evils of the non-Christian world or to minimize those 
 of Christendom. Our object will not be to make out a case by spe- 
 cial pleading, or even to institute a comparison, but rather to unfold 
 realities. 
 
 Our purpose requires that we note what is objectionable and dis- 
 creditable ; yet, on the other hand, we wish neither to hide nor ignore 
 
 the existence of many virtues, both individual and 
 Excellencies not to be social, which lend a peculiar interest and charm to 
 ignored or minimized, {jjg personal and national character of Eastern 
 
 peoples, especially the more advanced among 
 them. There is much that is beautiful and dignified in their social life. 
 The great nations of the Orient, when once thoroughly purified and 
 possessed by the spiritual culture of Christianity, will be as refined, as 
 gracious, as gentle, as noble, and as true as any other people which the 
 world contains. They have inherited and preserved, in many instances 
 with singular fidelity, the best products and many of the most commend- 
 able customs of the ancient civilizations, and to refuse to recognize this 
 would indicate a complacency on our part, at once invidious, ungenerous, 
 and unjustifiable. The Chinese, for example, could teach a considerable 
 portion of the Occidental world profitable lessons in filial piety, respect for 
 law, reverence for superiors, economy, industry, patience, perseverance, 
 contentment, cheerfulness, kindliness, politeness, skill in the use of op- 
 portunities, and energy in the conquering of an adverse environment. 
 The merchants of China, in contradistinction to the officials and small 
 traders, are held in high esteem as men of probity and business honor. 
 The capabilities of the Chinese people, under favorable auspices, will 
 surely secure to them an unexpectedly high and honorable place in the 
 world's future. There is a staying power in their natural qualities and 
 a possibility of development under helpful conditions which deserve 
 more recognition than the world seems ready at present to accord. With 
 proper discrimination as to specifications, and some necessary modifi- 
 cation and readjustment of the precise emphasis of the characterization, 
 similar statements might be made concerning the Japanese, Hindus, 
 and other Asiatic peoples. We must bear in mind also that these na- 
 tions have been obliged to struggle with crushing disabilities, and are 
 weighted with ponderous burdens, which have handicapped them for 
 ages in the race of progress. Considerations such as these, and others 
 which will occur to the student, but to which we have not time here 
 to refer, will suggest that a spirit of charitable and calm discrimination 
 should mark the treatment of the theme of our present lecture. 
 
 It is not to be denied, moreover, that some of the gravest counts in 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 7S 
 
 the indictment would hold against society, considered in its totality, in 
 more civilized lands, even those most fully under the influence of 
 Christianity. In fact, a catalogue of social evils 
 pertaining to Occidental nations might be made, The existence of serious 
 which would prove a formidable rival to its less ""ot'to^e'denied!" 
 civilized contemporary, although in many vital re- 
 spects it would be different.^ If we consider the immense advantages of 
 the environment of Christendom, it becomes a pertinent and searching 
 question whether Occidental races under similar historic conditions, 
 without the inspiration of Christian ideals, would have done better than 
 their less fortunate brethren. It must be acknowledged also that there 
 is an opportunity for a sombre and dismal retort on the part of the less 
 civilized races, based upon the treatment they have experienced at the 
 hands of professedly Christian nations, or upon the personal dealings 
 and conduct of the unworthy representatives of Christendom with whom 
 they have come in contact.^ There is little comfort to the sufferers in 
 the statement that the truer Christian sentiment and the higher moral 
 standards of Christendom condemn and repudiate these evils as ab- 
 horrent and disgraceful ; yet that this is the truth is a fact which has 
 in it a deep consolatory significance to a behever in the religion of 
 Christ, and gives an added impulse to the missionary enterprise as a 
 debt of Christianity to offset treatment on the part of so-called Christian 
 nations which was far from commendable. 
 
 There is little that gives reason for any tone of exultation in the con- 
 sideration of this whole matter, yet there is one test in which Christian 
 civilization can serenely rest. The ground not 
 
 -^ . , ,, ,, , .,. Christian civilization 
 
 of boastmg, but of hopefulness and gratitude m must be tested by its 
 Christendom, is that the forces of resistance to active antagonism to 
 evil are alert and vigorous. The standards of Hfe 
 and conduct are permanently elevated. The demands of public opinion 
 are enforced by regnant principles. The prevailing temper and tone 
 
 1 The iniquities of Christendom are not to be disguised or palliated. The forces 
 of evil seem to cooperate with the passions and weaknesses of humanity to produce 
 a record of wrong-doing which is both humbling and appalling. The shadow seems 
 to rest most darkly where the signs of material civilization are most imposing 
 (of. Wilberforce, " The Trinity of Evil "). The story of the half-breeds, in all their 
 variety, scattered through both continents, from the wilds of Canada to Patagonia, 
 involving as it does such flagrant iniquity, is a most discreditable reminder of the 
 failure of civilization to wholly restrain barbaric instinct and license. Cf. Adam, 
 " The Canadian Northwest : Its History and its Troubles," p. 227 ; The Andover Re- 
 view, July, 1889, pp. 15-36, article on " The Half-Breed Indians of North America." 
 
 2 Warneck, " Modem Missions and Culture," pp. 239-306. 
 
T6 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of society are in harmony with essential Christian ethics. The moral 
 forces which represent law and order, peace and sobriety, justice and 
 brotherhood, truth and honor, are in the ascendant, and working stead- 
 ily towards a beneficent goal. The leaven of Christianity has permeated 
 society, and is quickening it with a steadily expanding energy, and 
 holds the balance of power in directing the educational machinery of 
 civilization. In the non-Christian world almost the reverse is true. 
 There is a totally different tone and temper in the pubUc conscience. 
 The trend is under the influence of other masters. The social status 
 is marked by spiritual demoralization and ethical decadence. There 
 is poverty of blood and paralysis of moral muscle. The heathen world 
 now, as of old, is moribund. It is destitute in itself of recuperating 
 power. It lacks the one vital force which can alone guarantee the 
 moral hopefulness of social evolution. The Incarnation of the Son of 
 God, and the practical stimulus of contact with that sublime fact and 
 its spiritual corollaries, constitute the true secret of progress in the realm 
 of higher social transformation. 
 
 The subject now in hand hardly admits of analysis ; yet we have 
 thought it best to make an attempt to present the facts in orderly se- 
 quence, with a crude and confessedly artificial nexus. The effort must 
 be regarded as simply tentative, and with a view to our present conve- 
 nience. We have, therefore, divided the social evils to be noted into 
 groups, with somewhat random specifications under each group. 
 
 I.— THE INDIVIDUAL GROUP 
 
 (Evils affecting primarily the individual, and secondarily society through the 
 
 individual) 
 
 I. Intemperance.— A survey of the present state of the world with 
 
 special reference to the drink habit reveals the lamentable fact that it 
 
 prevails more or less in almost all sections of the 
 
 Intemperance in many g^rth. A Still further Scrutiny exhibits the startling 
 
 nations — a comparative 
 
 survey. truth that regions where it has been least known are 
 
 the very places where the emissaries of Satan, draw- 
 ing their supplies from within the precincts of Christendom, are most 
 eager to thrust this vile and demoralizing traific. There are large sec- 
 tions of the world, including vast populations, where only the milder and 
 less dangerous forms of semi-intoxicants were in common use until the 
 cruel greed of those human harpies, the traders in intoxicants, intro- 
 duced the foreign forms of stronger alcoholic poisons. We must ac- 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 77 
 
 knowledge that the drink habit seems to be one of the deplorable 
 phenomena of civilization, and that a comparative survey of the use of 
 intoxicants reveals the fact that in no countries is it so prevalent as in 
 those of the European and the North and South American Continents.^ 
 If we turn oiur attention to the broader outlook of the world, we find 
 that wherever European civilization has established itself or has a con- 
 trolling influence, just there this scourge of intemperance, like a malign 
 contagion, has appeared and is spreading, and that, although native 
 races usually have intoxicants of their own manufacture, yet the evil 
 effects have everywhere been immensely increased by the introduction 
 of foreign alcoholic drinks. 
 
 Turning oxa attention now exclusively to foreign mission fields, and 
 including among them the countries where Roman Cathohcism prevails, 
 while exact comparative statistics are not to be found, yet the burden 
 of evidence seems to indicate that none surpasses the South American 
 Continent, Central America, and Mexico in the excessive use of intoxi- 
 cants.* Next perhaps would come India and Burma, where the British 
 Government holds a gruesome monopoly of both the drink and opium 
 traffics, and derives a revenue from both by auction sale of licenses and 
 custom tax, which seems to blind its eyes to the moral evils of the sys- 
 
 1 OfiScial statistics with reference to the United States indicate that, in spite of 
 all efforts at temperance reform, the consumption of intoxicants, including malt 
 liquors, from 1875 to 1892, rose from eight to seventeen gallons per head. (See 
 "Temperance in all Nations," vol. i., p. 446.) It had, therefore, more than 
 doubled in that period. In Great Britain the status is even more appalling. The 
 estimate of The London Standardis that " 2,500,000 go beyond the border line of 
 sobriety every vpeek in Great Britain." The estimate of " England's Glory and 
 England's Shame" is 2,280,000. Upon the testimony. of Sir Archibald Alison, 
 when Sheriff of Glasgow, 30,000 went to bed intoxicated in that city every Satur- 
 day night. In London the number is placed at 70,000. According to the estimate 
 of Dr. Norman Kerr, 150 die every day in Great Britain from the effects of strong 
 drink, making a total of nearly 55,000 every year. By other careful statisticians the 
 estimate is increased to 60,000. Similar statistics might be given for other European 
 countries, notably Russia, Belgium, and Germany. All figures fail to represent the 
 awful results of lunacy, disease, misery, and crime which accompany this loathsome 
 revel in drink. 
 
 Cf. Lecky, " Democracy and Liberty," vol. ii., pp. 135-168, for a comprehensive 
 sketch of the progress of temperance legislation and reform. Cf. also " Temperance 
 in all Nations," vol. i. 
 
 2 Cf. Reports of American Consuls upon various countries, published in " Tem- 
 perance in all Nations," Report of the World's Temperance Congress held at Chi- 
 cago, June, 1893. The consensus of testimony from resident missionaries in Mex- 
 ico, Central and South America points to intemperance as a fearful and abounding 
 social curse. 
 
78 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tem, and to sear the official conscience as to any sense of responsibility 
 for the rapid and fearful increase of the drinking habit. Next to India 
 we must place some sections of Africa, where the same dismal story of 
 foreign liquor introduction must be told. The West Coast, and to a less 
 extent the East Coast, of the Continent are flooded with the white 
 man's "fire-water." Millions of gallons enter every year, and the 
 demoralizing custom of paying the wages of natives in liquor is be- 
 coming alarmingly prevalent.^ If we follow up the direct avenues of the 
 Congo from the West Coast, and the inland waterways and caravan routes 
 of the East Coast, we will find that the traffic is penetrating the recesses 
 of the Continent.^ Commissioner Johnston estimates that at least thirty 
 per cent, of those who die in Central Africa are the victims of alcohol. ^ 
 Pathetic instances of protest and appeal from native chiefs and even 
 native communities are reported, which reveal the instinctive recogni- 
 
 1 The Niger Coast Protectorate, according to consular reports presented to 
 Parliament in August, 1895, shows an increase in two years of 225 per cent, in 
 import duties on spirituous liquors. The quantity received into the country during 
 the year ending July, 1892, was 1,350,751 gallons; March, 1893, 1,371,517; March, 
 
 1894, 2,609,158. Holland, Germany, and Britain are the largest importers. (See 
 consular reports quoted in The Missionary Record, Edinburgh, October, 1895.) 
 In Lagos upon market-days the products of the country are bartered for foreign 
 goods, and, according to the testimony of a resident English missionary, ' ' nineteen 
 shillings out of every twenty are exchanged for gin and rum " ( Work and Workers, 
 October, 1895, p. 414). In 1893 nearly 1,700,000 gallons of spirits entered Lagos. 
 
 A powerful editorial on " Spirits in Africa " in The Times, London, March 4, 
 
 1895, called forth a confirmatory letter from Bishop Tugwell of Western Equatorial 
 Africa, referring to the extent of the evil, which was published in The Times, August 
 17. 1895 (republished in Liberia, Bulletin No. 7, November, 1895). Ci. state- 
 ment of Sir George Goldie, Governor of Royal Niger Company, reported in The 
 Sentinel, June, 1895, p. 80. Cf. also The Mail (reprint of The Times'), August 23, 
 1895, speech of Sir Charles Dillce on the African Liquor Traffic, and Ibid., August 
 28, 1895, p. 6, and August 30, 1895, p. i. See furthermore The Church Missionary 
 Intelligencer, December, 1895, pp. 914, 915. The liquor traffic on the Gold Coast is 
 stated by Sir Charles Dilke to have amounted to 9,000,000 gallons in the last 
 twelve years. The condition in the Congo State' and other European protectorates 
 on the West Coast is substantially the same. 
 
 For a statement of the situation in South and East Africa and in India up to 1884, 
 consult Gustafson, "The Foundation of Death," pp. 351-356. For an elaborate 
 and comprehensive survey of the status of the drink habit and the progress of the 
 cause of temperance throughout the world, consult "Temperance in all Nations," 
 Report of the World's Temperance Congress held at Chicago, June, 1893 (New York, 
 The National Temperance Society and Publication House, No. 58 Reade Street). 
 
 8 Baptist Missionary Magazine, September, 1892, p. 392 ; Report of Baptist 
 Missionary Union, 1894, p. 351 ; 714; Missionary Herald, June, 1893, p. 238; Re- 
 gions Beyond, April, 1893, p. 221. 
 
 8 Central Africa, December, 1S94, p. 182, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 79 
 
 tion on their part of the dangers of the habit.i In Madagascar the 
 native Government has taken strenuous action to prevent the extension 
 of the trade in intoxicants, and has succeeded in greatly checking the 
 advances of the evil, but how it will be now that French influence has 
 obtained control is a matter of doubt. In Japan, Korea, and China, 
 while intemperance is a social curse,— increasingly so in Japan,— yet 
 it seems to be restrained to an extent which makes it far less of a na- 
 tional evil and a social danger than in the lands which we have passed in 
 review. Of the Ainu of Northern Japan it is said, however, that they 
 are " a nation of drunkards," and in the larger cities of Japan there is an 
 increasing tendency to intoxication. In Korea also there are ominous 
 signs of danger. In China, while drinking is sadly prevalent in the 
 large cities, yet the nation as a whole sets an example of sobriety. The 
 country is not as yet afHicted to any extent with the pubhc saloon, and 
 drinking is restricted to the home or to festive gatherings, and cannot 
 be considered as by any means so demoralizing as the opium habit. 
 Its extension is at present coniined almost exclusively to the foreign 
 ports.* In Mohammedan lands the use of intoxicants is greatly on the 
 increase. In the Turkish Empire, in Persia, and in North Africa, 
 Mohammedans as well as the nominal Christian population seem to be 
 yielding to the besetting temptation. The Koran, to be sure, prohibits 
 wine, but the Moslem conscience by a species of exegetical legerdemain 
 has interpreted the injunction as having no application to the concoc- 
 tions of the modem still. In the Paciiic Islands we have, with only 
 one or two remarkable exceptions, the universal story of the introduc- 
 tion of foreign liquors and the prompt surrender of the native to the 
 resistless enticement. 
 
 The result of our survey is that intemperance, largely through foreign 
 
 1 Bishop Tugwell recently presented to the " United Committee on the Native 
 Races and the Liquor Traffic " three remarkable documents bearing the names of 
 over twelve thousand inhabitants of his diocese on the West Coast, for the most 
 part natives, Christian, Mohammedan, and heathen. The documents were in sup- 
 port of the following resolution, passed at meetings held in August and September, 
 1895, in Abeokuta and Lagos : " That this meeting, recognizing that the traffic in 
 spirits— i.e., gin, rum, and other poisonous liquor— introduced into Western Equa- 
 torial Africa, as elsewhere in Africa, is working immense harm physically, morally, 
 and spiritually amongst every section of its communities, and further recognizing that 
 the time has come when a decisive blow should be dealt against the traffic, pledges 
 itself to support every effort that may be made in Africa or Europe to suppress it." 
 
 2 " Intemperance is pronounced a vice by Chinese public opinion. Habitual 
 drunkards are few, and the habit has not the hold it has in Western lands, owing, 
 possibly, to the weak wine and the favorite habit of tea-drinking. In the ports, where 
 foreigners introduce and use strong drink, the habits of the people are undergoing 
 
80 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 introduction, is rapidly on the increase throughout the earth, and that 
 Christianity owes it to herself and to the honor of Christendom to 
 support and encourage every effort of missions and every agency of 
 reform for saving the world from its ravages. 
 
 2. The Opium Habit.— The area of the prevalence of the opium 
 habit may be said to be limited to the eastern half of the continent of 
 
 Asia, including the islands to the southeast of China, 
 
 The extent of the opium the Empire of Japan being a notable exception. 
 
 traffic. The storm-centre of the vice is China, and here again 
 
 we meet with the same amazing phenomenon of 
 a civilized nation seriously compromised by complicity in the extension 
 of a demoralizing traffic. The part which the British Government has 
 taken in the introduction of opium into China is an indelible chapter 
 in the history of the nineteenth century, and the persistent encourage- 
 ment to its production in India up to the present time, and the advan- 
 tage which is taken of its exportation to China by the British Govern- 
 ment to swell the Indian revenue, is an aspect of English foreign policy 
 which is exciting intense indignation and loathing on the part of 
 rapidly increasing multitudes of the British public. While the habit has 
 been known in the East for centuries to a very limited extent, yet its 
 modem development and the fearful ravages of its excessive use may 
 be said to be coincident with its production in India under the 
 British rule and its recent cultivation in China as a native product, 
 under the stimulus of the demand which has arisen within a half-cen- 
 tury.i The present production in India in round numbers is 54,700 
 
 change, and intemperance is increasing." — Rev. Joseph S. Adams (A. B. M. U.), 
 Hankow, Province of Hupeh, China. 
 
 1 Maughan, " Our Opium Trade in India and China " (London, Society for the 
 Suppression of the Opium Trade, Finsbury House, Blomfield Street). 
 
 " Under the auspices and fostering care of the East India Company the trade 
 grew year by yeav so as to reach in 1800 as much as 4570 chests, and in 1854 not 
 less than 78,354 chests, each chest containing 133J pounds avoirdupois. The aver- 
 age import of foreign opium into China for the past ten years (1880-90) is 72,012 
 chests. The Persian and Turkish trade in opium is comparatively insignificant, the 
 average being only 4159 chests. Thus the average import from India alone is 67,418 
 chests. But this is not all. Prior to the introduction of the drug by foreigners it 
 was not used by the Chinese as an article of luxury. They were not ignorant of its 
 existence and medicinal properties, but there is not a particle of evidence to show 
 that it was smoked or abused in any other way in those days. Now, however, the 
 native growth exceeds the foreign at least six times. Whilst the demand for opium 
 hardly existed in China one hundred and fifty years ago, the Chinese at present con- 
 
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THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 81 
 
 cwts. annually, and of this amount the annual exportation, almost ex- 
 clusively to China, reaches 49,5 1 2 cwts., or 90.5 per cent.^ The revenue 
 of the British Government in India from opium has decreased of late.^ 
 Ten years ago it was fully twice what it is to-day. Its victims in China, 
 however, are constantly increasing in number, and are estimated at 
 present to be over 20,000,000, and by some as high as 40,000,000,^ 
 while the expense to China is about ;^2 5,000,000 annually.* 
 
 The real points at issue in the conflict are the extent of the evil re- 
 sulting from the use of opium, and the responsibility of the British 
 Government in the matter. The British administration in India, for 
 reasons of expediency and revenue, is incHned to defend itself by 
 minimizing both these considerations. It is on the defensive, and 
 contends vigorously and recklessly that the evils are insignificant, and 
 therefore, as a matter of course, that no responsibility exists. On the 
 other hand, a large and influential section of the British people contend 
 with irrepressible earnestness and increasing vehemence that the opium 
 traflSc as conducted by the British Government in India is a national 
 scandal and an indefensible crime, involving responsibiUty on the part 
 of Great Britain, and discrediting to a painful degree the fair honor of 
 a Christian nation. The Government has been hitherto unimpressible, 
 and has maintained in general a policy of immobility or pleaded the 
 non possumus argument. The agitation has been regarded in official 
 circles with incredulous unconcern, and, while some measiue of formal 
 deference has been shown, the practical outcome has been of trifling 
 value. Recent developments, however, indicate a marked advance 
 along the Unes of an effective and victorious crusade. 
 
 sume every year enough to fill from 400,000 to 500,000 chests. "—Griffith John, D.D. 
 (L. M. S.), Hankow, China. 
 
 1 " Report of Royal Commission," vol. ii., p. 345. 
 
 2 The Budget estimate of gross revenue from opium for 1894-95 w^> ™ ^^^^ °f 
 rupees, Rx 6,393,600, equal to 63,936,000 rupees (" Statesman's Year-Book," 1895, 
 p. 130) ; and from this must be subtracted 22,553,000 rupees on the score of expen- 
 diture, leaving a net revenue for that year of 41,383,000 rupees. To this must be 
 added the net revenue from excise (sale of licenses, etc. ), which for the average of 
 five years, ending 1894, was 9,851,290, making the total approximate income of 
 the Government from opium, in 1894-95, 51,234,290 rupees. The value of the 
 rupee for that year was officially estimated at is. zd., so that if reduced to sterling 
 currency the income is equivalent to ;£'2,988,673. If we estimate the pound sterling 
 at $5, this will give us $14,943,365, or in round numbers $15,000,000, as the pres- 
 ent total annual revenue of the Indian Government from opium. Cf. The Friend of 
 China, August, 1894, p. 6, and Wilson's '.' Minute of Dissent, " Supplement to The 
 Friend of China, May, 1895, p. 40. ^ Ball, " Things Chinese," p. 335. 
 
 < " Report of Shanghai Conference," 1890, p. 337. 
 
82 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The subject has been before Parliament at various times, and in 189 1 
 a resolution was passed which declared that the methods of the British 
 Government in connection with the opium revenue 
 The Royal Commission ^grg " morally indefensible." On September 2, 
 on opmm.^an its ^gg^, a Royal Commission was appointed by Par- 
 liament to investigate the question of opium in 
 India, the report ef which was presented early in 1895. It should be 
 noted that the Commission did not undertake to investigate the question 
 of its exportation to China and the results of its use there, but confined 
 its attention to opium as used in India. This restriction limits greatly 
 the usefulness of such an investigation, and gives a misleading impres- 
 sion to its conclusions. The report of this Commission is altogether 
 in the interests of the present status, but its report is one thing and the 
 mass of evidence which it has collected is quite a different matter. A 
 member of the Commission, Mr. H. J. Wilson, presented a Minority 
 Report dissenting from the judgment of the majority. Such searching 
 analyses of the evidence as are presented in his " Minute of Dissent," 
 and also in a published "Review of the Evidence" by Mr. Joshua 
 Rowntree, reveal a mine of information on the subject of opium which 
 can be worked to the manifest advantage of the anti-opium catise. The 
 Royal Commission will not by any means have things its own way. 
 Its voluminous documents, filling several large Government Blue Books, 
 its accessory literatme, in the shape of petitions, memorials, public ad- 
 dresses, and press discussions, and the awakening of general interest in 
 the question will all serve to mark an era in the history of the campaign 
 against opium, from which a large volume of new and striking data will 
 emerge, and from which the agitation will derive new impulse and vigor 
 and reap a decided advantage. The war is by no means on the wane. 
 
 The recent action of the British Government in restricting the opium 
 traffic in Burma may be regarded as a victory on the part of the op- 
 ponents of the opium policy, although the reasons 
 British restrictions in assigned by the British Government for that action 
 Burma. revealed a studied indifference to the agitation, and 
 
 in fact credited Buddhism with the moral influence 
 against opium ; yet the fact that the action was taken is highly signifi- 
 cant, and stands with all the force of a moral paradox as a self-inflicted 
 indictment of the Government policy for India and China. No one 
 can read the official notification which announces that "the use of 
 opium is condemned by the Buddhist religion, and the Government, 
 believing the condemnation to be right, intends that the use of opium 
 by persons of the Burmese race shall forever cease," without finding 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 83 
 
 himself face to face with the puzzling enigma of how the condemnation 
 is right when pronounced by Buddhism, and of indifferent value when 
 pronounced by Christianity. He will find it difficult also to restrain a 
 lively and irrepressible inquiry as to why, if the Government, "believ- 
 ing the condemnation to be right," feels under obligation to prohibit 
 forever the Burmese race from using it, it should not also carry out the 
 same prohibition in the case of the Indian races, and, so far as its 
 participation is concerned, in the case of the Chinese race. The truth 
 seems to be that the report of the recent Royal Commission was 
 rendered in the interest of financial and political expediency rather 
 than with any profound consideration of the moral responsibility in- 
 volved. 
 
 As to the real extent of the evil, geographically, physically, morally, 
 and socially, the evidence seems conclusive to one who receives it in 
 an unprejudiced spirit and studies its significance. 
 A geographical survey of the area of the opium The area of the opium 
 
 , , .^ . . ^, . ■ » ., . , , habit, and the evils of 
 
 habit presents at the outset the stnkmg fact that us use. 
 
 Japan is free. The wisdom of her statesmen has 
 guaranteed her by treaty against the introduction of the drug, while the 
 laws against its manufacture and use are of exemplary severity and are 
 strictly enforced. It had been carried into Korea by the Chinese, and 
 was rapidly gaining headway, but there is reason to hope that if Japanese 
 influence and supervision rather than Russian are to prevail in Korea, 
 the evil will be checked. Throughout the length and breadth of China, 
 even in her far western provinces of Shensi, Szechuan, and Yunnan, it 
 prevails to an extent which may be regarded as a frightful and demor- 
 alizing social evil. The testimony as to its prevalence in Yunnan and 
 the remoter provinces reports as high as eighty per cent, of the men 
 and fifty per cent, of the women addicted to the pernicious habit.^ In 
 Formosa opium aiid whiskey have been counted as two of the main 
 evils to be contended with. The recent prohibition of the opium trade 
 by the Japanese has, however, given the hope of a change for the 
 better. In the Eastern Archipelago there is the same story of its des- 
 olating effects. In Siam and Laos it ranks as a baneful custom. In 
 the Straits Settlements it has securely established itself. In Burma it 
 was rapidly doing its deadly work until the revolt of the Burmese 
 effected a remarkable change of policy on the part of the British 
 Government. In India, owing to the Government custom of licensing 
 for a consideration its use, and practically facilitating its consumption, 
 it is an evil which is growing with alarming rapidity. Testimonies from 
 1 Chilians Millions, December, 1894, p. 168. 
 
84 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 all parts of India leave no doubt upon this point. Opium dens are 
 becoming a feature of dissipation in the cities of India, and are not 
 unknown even in the larger villages. The Island of Ceylon is plenti- 
 fully supplied with them, especially its principal city of Colombo. One 
 of the most distressing aspects of its use in India is the habit of giving 
 it to children, even during infancy, to stupefy them into quietness. Its 
 effect upon their physical and mental constitution induces a state of 
 paralysis and collapse which frequently results in lifelong injury .1 In 
 Persia the drug is both cultivated and used in considerable quan- 
 tities. In Teheran, Meshed, and other cities opium dens are to be 
 found.^ 
 
 Beyond the boundaries mentioned, while there is a scattering and 
 dangerous tendency to the prevalence of the vice, yet we cannot regard 
 it as in the same sense a dominant social evil, as it certainly must be 
 considered within the above-indicated geographical limits. 
 
 As to its physical and moral effects a large volume might be written.' 
 We cannot enter into the subject at any length, and yet it should not 
 be dismissed without at least a decisive verdict. To a candid student 
 of the testimony of those whose assertions can be relied upon and who 
 speak from personal observation, there can be but one conclusion, and 
 that is that it is one of the most threatening and militant evils of China, 
 and, indeed, of all sections of the earth where it is gaining headway.* 
 
 1 Friend of China, December, 1894, p. Ill j The Missionary Herald, August, 
 1894, p. 324. 
 
 2 " The opium poppy is grown in many parts of Persia. The surplus opium is 
 exported to China, India, and England. The commercial value of the opium ex- 
 ported from Persia per annum probably approaches $2,500,000. The quantity of 
 opium consumed in Persia is comparatively large, and is no doubt on the increase. 
 I think it is a low estimate to say that one third of the adult population, including 
 both sexes, use it immoderately, and a very large proportion of the remainder use it 
 to some extent. During a recent visit to the city of Meshed I went into two opium 
 dens, and the people I found were the vilest of the vile. More recently, one night, 
 I visited twelve of these dens in the city of Teheran. I found therein in all about 
 one hundred and fifty people. I do not suppose that it is known how many of these 
 public opium dens there are in Teheran, but I should not be surprised if there are one 
 hundred of them, besides the ordinary tea-houses where the brittle opium is smoked, 
 and private houses where a few friends meet regularly to indulge. Probably a mil- 
 lion and a quarter of people in Persia are addicted to the opium habit. They con- 
 sume at least 3,881,410 pounds in a year, which at present prices is worth $9,125,- 
 274."— Rev. Lewis F. Esselstyn (P. B. F. M. N.), Teheran, Persia. 
 
 ' Dudgeon, " The Evils of the Use of Opium." Cf. also " Report of Shanghai 
 Conference," 1890, pp. 314-354. 
 
 * For a recent sketch of the present status of the anti-opium movement see Mis- 
 sionary Review of the World, April, 1896, p. 265. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 85 
 
 3. The Gambling Habit.— Although gambling is to be found in 
 Japan, and apparently in some places to excess, despite a laudable 
 effort on the part of the Government to suppress 
 it, yet the contrast with China in this particular is '^'^^ prevalence of 
 greatly to the credit of the Japanese. In Korea throughout the'worTd' 
 the passion is widespread, and is apparently unre- 
 strained. China, however, seems to lead the van of the gambling fra- 
 ternity throughout the world. The indulgence of the Chinese is im- 
 memorial and inveterate; in fact, it is justly regarded as the most 
 prominent vice in China, its only rival being the opium habit.'- To be 
 sure, it is forbidden by the Government, but the prohibition seems to 
 be a dead letter, either through bribery or through the utter inefficiency 
 of the authorities, and it can hardly be said that there is the slightest 
 official restraint upon the universal passion, which seems to hold sway 
 among all classes, from the mandarins and literati down to the home- 
 less and poverty-stricken beggars, who are often in their way the most 
 hopeless slaves to the habit. 
 
 In Siam the vice seems to carry the nation by storm, but vigorous 
 attempts at suppression have been made by the authorities, and it is 
 now forbidden, except on holidays, when it is allowed unchecked. It 
 cannot be said, however, that the efforts of the Government are in- 
 genuous, as it draws a large revenue from this source by licensing 
 lotteries and gambling-houses. These licenses are farmed out to the 
 highest bidder, and give him a monopoly, with the power of prosecut- 
 ing all competitors. It is next to impossible for a government to 
 suppress a vice with one hand and encourage it for its own private gains 
 with the other. We are not surprised to read, therefore, that "gambling- 
 houses and their natural concomitants and next-door neighbors, the 
 pawnshops, are numerous in Bangkok,'' and that "this deadly na- 
 tional trade can but increase so long as a native government prefers to 
 use it as a source of profit rather than to check it as a national curse." ^ 
 
 In Burma it is "the bane of the country," and in India, although 
 checked by the British Government, it is still a social vice of large 
 magnitude. It is a special feature of some religious festivals, when 
 the British policy of non-interference in matters of religion leads the 
 Government to allow it, on the ground that it is a concomitant of a 
 religious celebration. In Persia and the Turkish Empire it is appa- 
 rently increasingly prevalent. It hovers around the coast-line of Africa, 
 
 1 Wffliams, " The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., p. 825 ; Douglas, " Society ta 
 Chma," pp. 82, 383. 
 
 * Norman, " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," p. 421. 
 
86 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 including Madagascar, but is little known in the interior. The whole 
 Continent of South America seems to be under the demoralization 
 of this social curse. In Central America and Mexico it is found 
 to excess in all its forms, and often under official patronage. The 
 South American Government lotteries are sources of vast revenues, 
 portions of which are applied to the support of philanthropic institu- 
 tions, and the remainder is appropriated by the State. Prizes as high as 
 six hundred thousand dollars are given, and some as high as a million 
 are already in contemplation.^ 
 
 4. Immoral Vices. — The immemorial story of human frailty and 
 lust, with their cruel adjuncts of brutality and crime and the wretched 
 aftermath of shame and misery, is still in our day the most indelible 
 moral taint of society which the world's history presents. There is no 
 temptation more universal and more formidable than the solicitations 
 of immorality. It is a theme which leads us by a short cut into the 
 depths of human depravity, and we soon find that there are sins which 
 cannot be named and revolting aspects of vice which can only be re- 
 ferred to with cautious reserve. It is in this connection that Christian 
 morality wages its most stubborn conflicts and vindicates most engag- 
 ingly its saintly beauty and its heavenly charm. It is the same old 
 story in all ages, and the state of the world to-day, except as Christian 
 purity has hallowed the relation of the sexes, is as abominable and 
 nameless as ever. 
 
 The old Roman status in its essential abandon is faithfully repro- 
 duced in the licensed and wholly undisguised Yoshiwara of Tokyo, 
 which is quite as much a matter-of-fact feature of 
 Immorality in Japan, the city, in Spite of its horrid commerce in girls, 
 Korea, and China. as its hotels and temples. The same plan of 
 government provision for "regulated " vice prevails 
 in all Japanese cities, and seems to be regarded with quite as much 
 complacency as the public parks and the innocent-looking tea-houses.' 
 The inmates are virtually the galley-slaves of lust, having often been 
 sold by fathers or brothers to the cruel servitude ; yet, strange to say, 
 they do not necessarily lose social caste, so that the transfer to the re- 
 lation of legal marriage with the assumption of an honorable position ic 
 the home is entirely free from the shock which such an incident would 
 
 I The Gospel in all Lands, July, 1894, p. 313. 
 
 » Norman, " The Real Japan," p. 269. Cf. also " How the Social Evil is Regu- 
 lated in Japan," a pamphlet printed in Tokyo for private circulation only. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 87 
 
 involve in Western or even in other Eastern lands. A Japanese may find 
 there either a wife or a concubine, as he prefers, with hardly more 
 comment upon the act in the one case than in the other. The fact that 
 this is only rarely done may be conceded, but the possibility of its being 
 accompUshed with the easy and complacent assent of social sentiment 
 is a significant sign of the lax views that prevail. Many Mikados, even 
 in recent times, have been born of concubines.^ It is true that Japanese 
 law prohibits bigamy, and that marital fidelity is exacted so far as the 
 conduct of the wife is concerned, but there is no such demand upon 
 the husband, and still less upon men who are not married.^ A dual 
 code is as clearly recognized as the distinction of sex itself. The man 
 is under no bonds which society or even his own wife can insist upon. 
 He is free to legally register concubines as inmates of his home, and 
 his indulgence, however open, meets no challenge or rebuke, not even 
 from Japanese law, which does not recognize this kind of infidelity as 
 even a partial plea for divorce.^ A candid survey of the social history 
 of Japan would indicate immorality as her national vice. Relics of 
 phallic worship are still to be found,* and its spirit as well as its openly 
 displayed symbols form even yet a feature of festival or holiday 
 hilarity in certain sections of Japan. Hardly an expression of profanity 
 is in use, but obscene references are common. Indecent pictures are 
 tolerated with strange indifference in some sections in the interior of 
 the country, even in public places where they catch the gaze of mul- 
 titudes. Art and literature are made the medium of gross suggestive- 
 ness, and in too many cases are defiled with shameless indelicacy. Some 
 strange and startling unconventionalities in connection with bathing 
 customs and scantiness of attire seem to characterize the every-day life 
 of the people. We should not, however, judge too hastily and severely 
 customs like these as necessarily an indication of special moral depravity, 
 since so much depends upon the spirit of the participants and the at- 
 mosphere of local sentiment. It cannot be disguised, however, that 
 the " social evil " and all its concomitants are the open shame of Japan 
 more than of any other people outside the license of tropical barbarism. 
 An extract from Neesima's diary in 1864 gives an insight into the 
 shocking condition of the coast cities and towns.^ There has been no 
 change for the better, except as Christian effort has succeeded in grap- 
 
 1 Chamberlain, "Things Japanese," p. 292. 
 a Ibid., p. 285. 
 
 • Griffis, "The Religions of Japan," pp. 124, 149, 320. 
 
 • Edmund Buckley, " Phallicism in Japan" (Chicago. The UniverKity PressV. 
 
 • Davis, " Life of Neesima," p. 22. 
 
88 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 pling with the evil. " The finest houses in Japan belong to the woman 
 in scarlet. . . . The hcensed government brothel, covering acres of 
 land, is the most beautiful part of the capital. Oriental splendor— a 
 myth in the streets— becomes reaUty when the portals of the Yoshiwara 
 are crossed."^ 
 
 In Korea a severe code of reserve surrounds woman ; yet concubi- 
 nage, amounting, in fact, to practical polygamy, is legal and common, 
 while harlotry flaunts itself with exceptional boldness.^ Vices of the 
 deepest dye, " suggestive of the society of Gomorrah," are known to 
 be practised even in the highest social circles.^ Dancing-girls of im- 
 moral character are employed and paid by the Government, and are 
 subject to the call of the magistrate at any time. 
 
 In China female chastity is severely guarded, and there is no licensed 
 immorality; yet a state of things which is frankly acknowledged in 
 Japan is simply an open secret among the Chinese.* Society regards 
 it with a sly frown, the Government prohibits and professes to discipline 
 it ; yet vice festers in every city of China and presents some shamefully 
 loathsome aspects. The traffic in young girls, especially those who may 
 be afflicted with bUndness, is the usual method of supplying brothels 
 with their inmates. The infamous trade of the "pocket-mother" and 
 her colonies of native slave-girls, and its relation to the opium habit in 
 the Straits Settlements and China, have been recently brought vividly to 
 the attention of the British public by Mrs. Andrew and Dr. Kate 
 Bushnell.* In the every-day conversation of the Chinese, especially of 
 the poorer classes, expressions so exceptionally vile that they cannot 
 be hinted at are only too well known. " An English oath is a winged 
 bullet ; Chinese abuse is a ball of filth," says the author of " Chinese 
 Characteristics." The notorious books and placards of Hunan are 
 an indication of the interior furnishing of the Chinese imagination. 
 
 In Siam adultery is lightly condemned, and unclean vices are prac- 
 tised. In Tibet the moral status is low. Marriage is often a convenient 
 fiction, and may be adjusted as a temporary bargain wherever a man 
 may happen to be. Not only is polygamy common, but polyandry is 
 recognized and practised among the peasantry.^ 
 
 1 Griffis, " The Mikado's Empire," seventh edition, pp. 362, 368. 
 
 2 Griffis, " Corea," p. 251 ; Gilmore, " Korea," p. 109. 
 
 i Norman, " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," p. 352. 
 
 < Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," p. 179; Douglas, "Society in China," 
 p. 205. 
 
 » Cf. The Christian (London), March 28, 1895, article entitled " Social Morals 
 in the Orient." 
 
 ' Marston, " The Great Closed Land," pp. 47, 49. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 89 
 
 India occupies an unenviable prominence as a land where immoral 
 tendencies have flourished and brought forth their fruit with tropical 
 luxmance. There is a panoramic variety in the 
 phases of its social vice, the ill-concealed obscenity xbe moral condition of 
 of much of its sacred literature, and the immoral \n&\a~ 
 
 aspects of some of its religious rites and festivals. 
 The social demoralization which attends vice is revealed there to an 
 unusual extent— the tell-tale stringency in the seclusion of woman, 
 child marriage, low views of woman's place and function in society, 
 a contemptuous estimate of her character and capacity, tainted family 
 life, unseemly marriage customs, obscenity in talk and song, prosti- 
 tution, concubinage, lax views of adultery, and the contamination of 
 so-called religious rites and services with uncleanness. The spirit 
 of that now happily obscure phase of nature-worship which is known 
 as phallicism is distinctly traceable in India.^ Its symbols and signs 
 are still visible at many of the shrines of Hinduism. Its grosser and 
 more intolerable features have been permitted to lapse in recent times, 
 but that unhallowed association of fancied religious fervor with lustful 
 abandon is still hardly masked in some of the religious festivals and 
 customs of Hindu society. It could hardly be otherwise when even the 
 sacred literature is not free from gross impurity, and many of the gods 
 worshipped are examples in vice;^ when continence is not inculcated; 
 when widows, often young and helpless, are condemned by necessity 
 either to a life of social misery or shame ; when the zenana system in- 
 volves the frequent separation of husbands and wives, the former com- 
 pelled to be absent, and the latter hidden in unnatural seclusion ;' and 
 when social customs and even religious observances encourage and 
 minister to lewd license.* The nautch dancing, so common, gives to 
 immoral women social 6clat, which is too often stimulated and enhanced 
 by European patronage \^ harlotry is notoriously common in the towns 
 and cities, although village life is comparatively free from it, and 
 village women are as a class morally well behaved.^ Hindu temples 
 are in many instances disgraced by indecent symbols and sculptures ; 
 while the old Greek custom of having female attendants attached to 
 
 1 Sir Monier-Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," Index, sub Linga and 
 Yoni. 
 
 2 J. Murray Mitchell, "The Hindu Religion," pp. 32, 33. 
 
 * Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 412, 413. 
 
 4 " Purity Reform in India," pp. 16, 25-28, Papers on Indian Social Reform, 
 Madras, 1892. 
 
 5 Hid., p. 16. 
 
 * Willuns, p. 413. 
 
90 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the temples is a well-known fact in many of the Hindu shrines of India. 
 These dancing-girls call themselves deva-dasi ("slaves of the gods"), and 
 in the sense of being at the service of every comer, of whatever caste, 
 are also the slaves of men.i Young girls are frequently dedicated in 
 infancy to some popular Hindu god, and the simple meaning of this is 
 that they are devoted to a life of shame— branded and married to the 
 god, to be forever known as consecrated to depravity in the name of 
 religion.2 In fact, immorality is more distinctively a feature of Hin- 
 duism than morahty. It is not to be supposed that Indian society 
 without exception is wholly given over to this state of things. There 
 are multitudes of worthy natives who regard these features of Hindu- 
 ism with contempt and loathing, but they are exceptions, and they have 
 broken with Hinduism, or at least with its moral laxity. English army 
 life in India, and to a deplorable extent the habits of foreign residents, 
 present a sadly compromising feature of social vice. The repeal of 
 the Contagious Disease Act, although a moral victory, has been too 
 inoperative to remedy entirely official complicity in the supervision and 
 regulation of vice, as the evidence before the Committee recently ap- 
 pointed by the Indian Government on this subject clearly shows.* This 
 fact was brought to Kght chiefly by the testimony of Mrs. EUzabeth 
 W. Andrew and Dr. Kate Bushnell, two American ladies connected 
 with the W. C. T. U., who in the service of the cause of purity in India 
 gave themselves to the heroic investigation of the true status of this 
 question. 
 
 The EngKsh Government is not unmindful, however, of its moral 
 responsibiUty and its evident duty to deal vigorously with this burning 
 subject of immprahty in India. Penal codes and official regulations 
 seem to open the way for the suppression or restriction of many forms 
 of vice, but the evil is so gigantic that it can elude and defy the law, 
 while in deference to the fanatical reUgious temper of India a significant 
 exception has been made by the Government. In the clause of the 
 penal code against obscenity in literature and art is the following caveat : 
 " This Section does not extend to any representation sculptured, en- 
 graved, painted, or otherwise represented on or in any temple, or on 
 any car used for the conveyance of idols, or kept or used for any reli- 
 gious purpose." The various governments of India, British and native, 
 united in expressing their judgment, with reference to the above excep- 
 tion, that "native pubUc opinion is not yet sufficiently advanced to 
 
 1 " Purity Reform in India," p. 26, Papers on Indian Social Reform, Madras, 
 1892. 2 Ibid., pp. 27, 28. 
 
 ' " Report of Committee to Inquire into Prostitution in India," London, 1893. 
 
Ttt£ SOCIAL EVIL'S OF THE MdN-CtiRlSflAk WORLL) 81 
 
 permit the destruction of such indecencies." The result of this policy 
 of non-interference on the part of the authorities with the religious 
 customs of the people is that, however much of a saturnalia their fes- 
 tivals and celebrations may become, they are free from legal restraint 
 if their indecencies are becomingly pious and their wickedness is under 
 the shelter of religion. The British Government has already accom- 
 plished a beneficent r61e of reform in several respects where the interests 
 of humanity required it, and the time will come — Christianity indeed 
 is hastening it — when the unclean scandals of Hinduism must go also, 
 and the various unsavory abominations of temple, festival, and pilgrim- 
 age will be consigned to oblivion. 
 
 The Mohammedan lands of Afghanistan, Arabia, Persia, Turkey, and 
 Northern Africa are not above other sections of Asia characterized by 
 exceptional immorality among the sexes. Prosti- „. ... 
 
 ^ . . The status in Moham- 
 
 tution is not carried on as a profession, except m the medan lands, and in 
 larger cities, where it is as well known as elsewhere ; South America, Africa, 
 
 and the Pacific Islands. 
 
 but easy divorce and lax arrangements as to mar- 
 riage relations open the way for a whited-sepulchre species of promiscu- 
 ity gratifying to the pious Moslem, since it is sanctioned by his religion 
 and counted as socially respectable. As is usually the case, however, 
 where the relation of the sexes is severely guarded by artificial restric- 
 tions in a low moral environment^ the prevalence of unnatural vices 
 shows that the stream of lust if barred in one direction makes for itself 
 a channel in another. There are aspects of vice in Mohammedan lands, 
 and indeed throughout the Eastern world, which can only be referred 
 to in veiled phrases as veritable mysteries of iniquity. 
 
 The South American Continent is, with Central America, Mexico, 
 and the West Indies, notorious for profligacy. The tone of society is 
 dissolute. The influence and example of the Romish clergy are in 
 favor of laxity. Society both high and low is exceptionally unchaste and 
 vitiated by an atmosphere of suspicion, distrust, and prurient sensitive- 
 ness. Respectable parents guard their daughters with the utmost watch- 
 fulness until married, while their sons, with few exceptions, give way 
 to vicious indulgence. The masses concern themselves little with legal 
 restraints or formalities. ^ 
 
 If we turn now to the barbarous and savage races of the African Con- 
 tinent and the Pacific Islands, we find a state of morals which is truly ap- 
 
 1 Statistics of illegitimacy in these countries are startling in their significance. 
 In Central America they range from fifty to seventy per cent. In Jamaica they have 
 been reduced within sixty or seventy years from one hundred to sixty per cent. 
 "The forty-per-cent. rate of legitimate births is clearly the result of mission 
 
92 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 palling in its bestiality.i The morally gruesome details are too repulsive 
 to admit of an attempt even to summarize them, and we must forbear. 
 
 5. Self-torture.— This is usually practised under the stimulus of 
 religious fanaticism either to secure merit or reverence or to quiet 
 superstitious fears. It is especially common in India on the part of 
 the devotees who court veneration on account of supposed sanctity. 
 As the torture is self-inflicted, at first thought one is incHned to de- 
 nounce its folly and withhold sympathy for the sufferer ; but when we 
 reflect that it is often endured with a sincere, although mistaken, zeal 
 as a rehgious act, one is rather inclined to pity the victim of such a 
 delusion. The system of ascetic legalism which encourages such self- 
 inflicted pain is largely responsible for the folly of its victims, and the 
 spirit of the Gospel only will banish the haunting consciousness of 
 condemnation which drives men to such cruel expedients to secure the 
 favor of God. 
 
 There is a ghastly variety in the methods of self-tortiure practised in 
 
 India. Some of them, such as hook-swinging, have been abolished by 
 
 the British Government as offenses against society. 
 
 Self-torture in India, jjj several of the native states, however, it is still 
 
 China, and Mohamme- . . ... 
 
 dan lands. m vogue, and recent reports m many directions 
 
 seem to indicate defiant attempts to revive the 
 barbarous spectacle even in British India. Devotees and fakirs are 
 accustomed to give themselves up to torture by fire, or by reclining for 
 a long period upon beds of spikes or sharp stones. Others will refuse 
 to give themselves rest, or abstain altogether from sleep, or hold some 
 limb in a painful position until it becomes shrivelled and rigid. Others 
 will allow themselves to be fed on any kind of revolting or improper food, 
 having made a vow to reject nothing which is offered them to eat. The 
 tests to which they are put are often horrible in the extreme. If they 
 should refuse what is offered them they would thereby forfeit their 
 sanctity and the veneration of their credulous admirers. A common 
 practice is to pierce the body with large needles. Frequently iron 
 skewers are thrust through the cheeks and tongue, which are thereby 
 
 work." The ratio in the South American States is also high. Infants can be easily 
 disposed of by placing them in the turn-cylinders provided at the convents. 
 
 1 Macdonald, " Religion and Myth," pp. 201-203 \ Slowan, " The Story of Our 
 Kaffrarian Mission," p. 24. 
 
 2 The Missionary Herald, January, 1893, p. 16 j July, 1893, p. 292 j October, 
 1893, p. 38. 
 
Adjusting the Hook. Suspending the Victim. 
 
 Hook-Swinging in India. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 93 
 
 caused to swell to frightful proportions. The flesh is cut with knives 
 or pierced with wire.i Men are sometimes buried to the neck, or 
 are hung by the heels to a tree. The worship of some of the cruel 
 Hindu divinities, especially the goddess Kah, is frequently attended 
 with shocking exhibitions, which must involve intense suffering to the 
 participants.^ 
 
 In China a prominent motive to self-mutilation is devotion to sick 
 parents. Dutiful sons and daughters will cut off pieces of their own 
 flesh, of which soup is made and given to a sick or infirm parent.* 
 Other species of voluntary suffering, not always, however, from reK- 
 gious or fiUal motives, but with a view to gain, are walking with the feet 
 or back bare in severe wintry weather, or appearing upon public oc- 
 casions with iron chains around the body and heavy wooden collars 
 around the neck, or swinging weighty censers fastened to the flesh by 
 brass hooks,* or causing self-deformity or loathsome ulcers upon the 
 person with a view to excite sympathy and secure gain. 
 
 In Mohammedan lands religious celebrations are frequently attended 
 with these fanatical cruelties. Devotees will pierce and mutilate them- 
 selves, and in some instances prostrate themselves upon the ground to 
 be trampled upon by horses with riders seated on their backs. Hindu- 
 ism and Mohammedanism seem to present almost the only exhibition 
 of this delusion, although Romanism has encouraged in the shape of 
 ascetic penances much grievous bodily suffering, while among the pagan 
 Indians of British Columbia acts of extreme self-cruelty are known to 
 be practised. 
 
 6. Suicide.— There is nothing distinctive in the act of self-destruc- 
 tion in non-Christian lands except its prevalence, or the fact that it results 
 from some pessimistic influence of the environment. 
 It is more common in China than in any other seif-destruction prev- 
 nation of the earth,5 and is resorted to for reasons »'«"* '" "^"y *"'"*=■ 
 peculiar to Chinese modes of thought. Its fre- 
 quency results, no doubt, from the frivolous estimate placed upon human 
 life, and the strange notion that personal grievances may be avenged 
 
 1 Bishop Thoburn, "India and Malaysia," pp. 125-130. 
 
 " " Popular Hinduism," p. 50, Papers on Indian Religious Reform, Madras, 
 1894. 
 
 ' Douglas, "Society in China," p. 183; Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," 
 p. 178. 
 
 * Du Bose, " The Dragon Image and Demon," p. 265. 
 
 s Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 434, 
 
94 CHRtSTlAM MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PHOGHMSS 
 
 in this way and that more injury may be done to the living than to the 
 victim himself.i There is a singular theory in Chinese official circles 
 that self-destruction on the part of a ruler in times of public danger is 
 a matter of high merit. "The perfect man," according to Confucius, 
 "is one who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his hfe."^ 
 The act is sometimes resorted to by military leaders in time of defeat, 
 either for the above reason, from a sense of shame, or to escape 
 punishment at the hands of the Government. The causes which lead 
 to it in most cases are trivial, such as a shortage in accounts, a 
 family quarrel, jealousy, or marital infelicity arising from the prac- 
 tice of polygamy. Even children of tender years resort to it when 
 disciplined by teachers or parents.^ It is especially prevalent among 
 women, on account of domestic unhappiness or from the desire to punish 
 an incorrigible husband. It is considered an act of merit for a widow 
 to follow her husband to the grave.* Dread of the matrimonial alli- 
 ance sometimes leads to self-destruction by young girls. The wives of 
 native converts to Christianity have been known to adopt this vigorous 
 method of protest to their husbands' change of faith. The doctrine of 
 transmigration no doubt renders suicide easier, since the victim expects 
 to continue his existence in a state possibly better than the one he now 
 occupies.^ 
 
 The most popular methods of accomplishing the act are by opium, 
 by drowning, or by eating matches, as none of these instrumentalities 
 mutilates the person, which passes intact into another life, the popular 
 opinion being that any mutilation of the body in death must be con- 
 tinued in the existence beyond. The use of opium has had a tendency 
 greatly to facilitate and multiply suicides.^ The Chinese New Year is 
 a favorite time for accomplishing the act. A missionary physician 
 reports having been called to ten cases in a single month, and to nearly 
 as many in the month following.'' 
 
 In Japan suicide has occupied a position of historic honor which has 
 characterized it nowhere else in the world. It has been even canonized 
 
 1 Du Bose, " The Dragon Image and Demon," p. 453 ; Norman, " The Peoples 
 and Politics of the Far East," p. 278. 
 
 2 Moule, " New China and Old," p. 50. 
 
 3 The Mission Field, London, March, 1894, p. 89 j The Messenger, Shanghai, 
 May, 1895, p. 74. 
 
 < Ball, " Things Chinese," p. 434; Medhurst, " The Foreigner in Far Cathay," 
 p. 105. 
 
 6 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 435. 
 
 • The Missionary Herald, Boston, February, 1895, p. 57. 
 
 1 The Missionary Record, March, 1895, p. 88. 
 
A Mendicant Priest, China. 
 
 (In fulfilment of a vow to raise a certain sum of money, he has pierced his cheelc with 
 
 a skewer, hoping thereby to excite sympathy and hasten the collection of the 
 
 amount desired. The beating of the gong announces his approach .J 
 
TUk SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 95 
 
 and admired as an object of heroism and a sign of distinction.^ Japa- 
 nese history and fiction mention with pride the various heroes and 
 heroines, sometimes by the thousands, who have distinguished them- 
 selves by committing hara-kiri, the theory of which is that it is an 
 exhibition of supreme loyalty to conviction, of patriotic sacrifice in 
 the interests of family pride, or for the honor of one's country.^ The 
 vanquished samurai in the old feudal days preferred death at his own 
 hand to falling into the power of his conqueror.' Later the practice 
 came to be regarded as a privileged way of dying in the execution of a 
 judicial sentence rather than having the punishment inflicted by other 
 hands. The modus operandi oi hara-kiri,^ or rather seppuku, as it is 
 called in more classical dialect, was that the victim himself with his own 
 hand plunged a dirk into the abdomen until death ensued. An im- 
 provement has been introduced in modern times by enlisting the services 
 of a friend upon the occasion, who is expected, as soon as the dirk has 
 been used by the victim, to complete the act by immediately beheading 
 the would-be suicide.^ This formal and privileged method of suicide 
 is not, however, common in Japan at present, although, as a great favor, 
 capital sentences may be executed in this manner. Other methods, 
 however, are in vogue, such as poisoning or hanging.^ The act is more 
 common on the part of women than of men, and that for trivial causes. 
 The favorite method is by drowning.'' The number of suicides officially 
 reported in 1891 was 7479, and in 1892 it was 7240. 
 
 In India in a majority of instances suicide is the result of unhappy 
 marriages or as a release from domestic cruelty. According to the 
 statement of a native journal, suicide is common among married women, 
 amounting to eighty-one per cent, of the total.* A native Brahman, 
 writing on the present social condition of the Hindus, states that in 
 connection with domestic trouble " suicides are not uncommon." De- 
 serted wives are apt to seek their own destruction. 
 
 In the East Indies, and still more so in New Guinea, "suicide is 
 very common, on account of the notoriety it confers."* In Africa, 
 although not as frequent as might be expected, it is often resdrted to. 
 
 1 Griffis, "The Religions of Japan," p. 112. 
 
 * Hearn, " Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," vol. ii., p. 390. 
 s Griffis, "The Mikado's Empire," p. 221. 
 
 * Literally, "belly-cutting." 
 
 5 Chamberlain, "Things Japanese," p. 200; Mitford, "Tales of Old Japan," 
 Appendix A. 6 GriiBs, " The Mikado's Empire," p. 473. 
 
 ■J Mrs. Bishop, "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," vol. i., p. 188. 
 8 India's Women, June, 1895, p. 245. 
 ' Chalmers and Gill, "Work and Adventure in New Guinea," p. 330. '\ 
 
96 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 7. Idleness and Improvidence.— Idle and shiftless habits in the 
 
 individual rob society of the personal increment of labor and thrift 
 
 which he might contribute, and make him rather a 
 
 The evils of sloth and burden to Others as well as a hindrance to progress. 
 
 improvidence. ^ diligent and thrifty spirit, on the other hand, 
 is a positive factor in social prosperity. Idleness 
 results not alone from indolence, but among African savages it is the 
 fruit of pride. Labor is a disgrace in frhe estimation of millions of lusty 
 barbarians, whose ideal of dignity is luxurious laziness. The heavier 
 as well as the lighter toils of life are left for the women to assume, who 
 are in most African communities doomed to drudgery and severe servi- 
 tude.i The result is an undiscipHned, flabby, and shiftless character, 
 living in such careless, happy-go-lucky ways that the native African as 
 a rule is socially a worthless drone, except when it suits his barbarous 
 fancy to play the equally objectionable r61e of a professional warrior 
 and plunderer. The Mashonas are said to be " born tired," so incor- 
 rigible is their aversion to work. On the West Coast labor is regarded 
 with both contempt and dread. 
 
 In the Pacific Islands the same spirit of sloth prevails among the 
 primitive races. " The conduct of the men of Aniwa is to stand by or 
 sit and look on while their women do the work," was the unctuous 
 reply of a group of New Hebrides worthies to the appeal of Dr. Paton 
 that they should engage in some useful occupation. Among the Negro 
 and Indian races of the world, wherever the blight of barbarism pre- 
 vails, industrious habits are practically unknown. Life is given over to 
 shiftlessness and vice, while the storehouses stand empty and the fields 
 lie barren and neglected. 
 
 Idleness in the more advanced nations, such as China, Korea, and 
 India, is productive of a vast system of vagrancy, and is responsible for 
 much pitiable poverty. There are Beggars' Guilds in most of the large 
 cities of China, so organized that what amounts to a regular tax of black- 
 mail is exacted from society. If the expected contribution is not forth- 
 coming, it is enforced by formidable raids or persecuting appeals, which 
 are generally effective.^ Korea is " full of Micawbers." They play the 
 r61e of parasites, blackmailers, and uninvited guests, forming themselves 
 into a sort of syndicate of social harpies, from whose impertinence and 
 tyranny the government is often called upon to protect the well-to-do 
 classes.^ Official plunderers, however, are just as bad in their way, 
 
 1 Rowley, "Twenty Years in Central Africa," p. 169; Central Africa, April, 
 1894, p. 61. 2 Fagg, " Forty Years in South China," p. 85. 
 
 • Griffis, " Corea," p. 289; The Gospelin all Lands, September, 1894, p. 411. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 97 
 
 and are responsible for much of the improvidence of the people, as their 
 rapacity makes prosperity and providence almost impossible, since any 
 eifort at accumulation only tempts the officials to prey upon those who 
 have the good fortune to lay up anything in store.'^ 
 
 In India the evils of mendicancy prevail. The poverty is extreme, 
 and with it there is much improvidence and recklessness as to debt. 
 Costly and exacting social customs are responsible for the impoverish- 
 ment of many famiUes, especially the expenses connected with marriages 
 and burials. The economic problems of India are truly formidable. 
 Debt, thriftlessness, and the prevalent poverty make the social con- 
 dition of the people pitiable, and any hopeful reform or economic ex- 
 pedients which would help India to wiser methods of living would be 
 an unspeakable benefit. 
 
 In the countries of South America there is a blight of indolence and 
 thriftlessness which sadly depresses social prosperity. An infusion of 
 energy, foresight, and industrial aspirations would be of the highest 
 economic value to all South American peoples. The idler and the 
 drone are there, as elsewhere, an injury and a bane to society. 
 
 8. Excessive Pride and Self-exaltation.— Inordinate self- 
 esteem in the individual affects society when it becomes a barrier to 
 the entrance of new and progressive ideas from 
 without. Vanity, conceit, and self -worship may so pride and vanity are 
 prejudice the mind that it becomes blind to better barriers to progress, 
 things, and shuts itself up in its own provincial 
 ignorance, refusing all help and inspiration from other sources. Pro- 
 gress becomes impossible. Rigid conservatism hardens into stupid 
 contentment with things as they are. Conceit and self-complacency 
 bar the path of improvement. The modern world is viewed with con- 
 tempt, and all outside the little environment of primitive life which 
 surrounds the victim of his own foolish pride is viewed with suspicion 
 and disdain. This pitiable exaltation of ignorance may be intellectual 
 and spiritual, shutting out the light of truth, or it may be social and 
 material, rejecting the facilities and discoveries of the modem world. 
 In either case it is an incalculable injury to society. It retards and 
 arrests social development, and postpones indefinitely the entrance of 
 nobler and larger life. 
 
 Every Asiatic nation suffers more or less from this consciousness of 
 its own superiority, although the energy and push of modem enterprise 
 1 The Missionary, October, 1894, p. 411. 
 
98 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and the growing influence of missionary education are rapidly breaking 
 down prejudice and letting in the light of wiser methods and larger 
 knowledge. Of all Asiatic nations the Chinese are conspicuous for 
 stolid conservatism and inflated pride. They belong to the " Middle 
 Kingdom," and the outside world of barbarism lies around them as the 
 centre. 1 Everything outside of China is inferior, and all foreigners or 
 foreign ideas are looked upon with contempt and hatred. One of the 
 chief functions of the Chinese is to humiliate the rest of the world and 
 teach it useful lessons of its own insignificance.^ 
 
 In Japan this trait reveals itself rather in national vanity and intel- 
 lectual conceit. There is some excuse, however, for Japan's self-con- 
 sciousness. She is in marked and favorable contrast with China in her 
 readiness to recognize the progress of more enlightened nations and 
 avail herself of every benefit which the genius of the Occident has pro- 
 vided. Her great danger is that intellectual pride and moral hauteiu- 
 will deprive her fair land of the uplifting influences of Christian en- 
 lightenment. Much, however, will be said elsewhere to encourage the 
 hope that the Japanese will resist this tendency to intellectual arrogance, 
 and welcome the nobler teachings of Christianity. 
 
 Korea has shut herself up in the seclusion of ignorance for centuries, 
 and only recently, through the force of circumstances, has the spell of 
 her isolation been broken. Her upper classes and literati are steeped 
 in pride, while the lower classes are still blinded with prejudice. 
 
 In Siam the spirit of Oriental self-complacency greatly retards the 
 development of the nation, although the influence of an enlightened 
 and liberal king is doing much to encoiuage larger aspirations among 
 his people. 
 
 India is the camping-ground of Brahmanic pride, the very acme of 
 supercilious conceit, and presents also notable illustrations of that absurd 
 self-exaltation of the so-called devotees and holy men of Hinduism. 
 The whole tendency of Hinduism is to stimulate self-esteem, while caste 
 is a bulwark of pride in its most subhme proportions. The subtle 
 speculations of Hindu religious thought have given a fascination to 
 philosophical themes, and have developed intellectual conceit to an ex- 
 traordinary degree. The Hindu reUgionist is pride incarnate, while the 
 shadow of a Brahman is a natural phenomenon more impressive than a 
 sunrise. The Mohammedan is a noted rival of the Hindu in religious 
 and intellectual pride. No more striking exhibition of the paralyzing 
 effect of the haughty spirit of Islam can be found than the social and 
 
 1 Henry, " The Cross and the Dragon," p. 33. 
 
 2 Coltman, "The Chinese; Medical, Political, and Social," p. 81. 
 
O 
 2 
 < 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 < 
 
 2 
 < 
 
 2 
 
 SI 
 
 S 
 o 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 99 
 
 fntellectual condition of the lands dominated by the Moslem. The 
 Turkish Empire, Persia, the North African countries, and Arabia are 
 samples of lands where pride rules with blighting sway. 
 
 The African, as a rule, may be said to be vain and conceited in 
 proportion to the density of his ignorance. If we take the Matabele 
 as a sample, we can hardly find his equal for overweening pride and 
 self-importance.^ The result has been manifest in thirty years of 
 stagnation even under the influence of faithful missionary effort.^ The 
 conquest of the nation by British arms, when permanently accom- 
 plished, will be a blessing, and no doubt beat down those hitherto im- 
 penetrable barriers which pride has erected. The pitiable condition of 
 the proud savages of the earth is owing in some measure to their in- 
 tense satisfaction with their own fancied superiority, and is a telling 
 lesson of the social perils of pride. A religion which would teach to. 
 these nations the true exaltation of humility — its beauty, its nobility, and 
 its gentle charm— would be a helpful blessing to the soul itself and to 
 all its social environment. 
 
 9. Moral Delinquencies.— A terrible and pitiable count must be 
 made under this head against the entire non-Christian world. The very 
 foundations of social integrity and prosperity are 
 shaken by such vices as untruthfulness and dis- "^^^ blighting effects of 
 
 , rri 1 r 1 • • ■ -i uutruthfulncss and 
 
 honesty. Iruthfulness is a prime essential to mu- dishonesty, 
 
 tual confidence, and honesty is a fundamental con- 
 dition of just and fair intercourse. Where society is permeated with 
 a spirit of deceit and knavery, where a lie is a commonplace and cheat- 
 ing is resorted to without compunction, all moral health and stability 
 seem to have been destroyed. A lie will be met by a lie. Deceit will 
 overreach deceit. Cheating will be matched by cheating ; and all the 
 arts of dishonesty will be excelled by some fresh ingenuity in fraud. 
 
 As the status of non-Christian nations in respect to these moral 
 qualities is studied, one is tempted to say, not in haste, but with calm 
 deliberation, " All men are liars." That there are individual exceptions 
 is happily true, but as a rule the world of heathenism heth in the wicked- 
 ness of deceit and dishonesty. Little can be said of any one nation in 
 favorable contrast with others. Each in turn seems to pose as an 
 expert in the guilty arts of deception. 
 
 Among the Japanese lying is a sadly common fault of dailv hfe. 
 
 1 Carnegie, " Among the Matabele," pp. 18, 68- 
 * The Chronicle, December, 1893, p. 307. 
 
100 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 This is acknowledged by themselves, and such is the testimony of 
 those who know the country well.i To their credit, however, it may 
 be said that their patriotism and exceptional loyalty to pubhc respon- 
 sibilities save them to a notable extent from the official dishonesty and 
 corruption which characterize the Chinese. 
 
 China is preeminently " an empire of make-believe." Amid high- 
 sounding pretensions " a universal dishonesty of mind poisons the sap 
 of the nation and produces all the cancers and evils which have made 
 China a byword for deceit and corruption." 2 True honor and upright- 
 ness seem to be lightly esteemed by all classes of society.^ The Rev. 
 Arthur Smith, in " Chinese Characteristics," has an entire chapter on 
 " The Absence of Sincerity." The testimony of Dr. S. Wells WilUams, 
 in summing up his estimate of the Chinese character, includes "the 
 universal practice of lying and dishonest deaUngs."* The Chinese seem 
 to share with the Persians the melancholy distinction of being " a na- 
 tion of liars." A flagrant exhibition of the Chinese capacity for mis- 
 representation has recently attracted the attention of the world in the 
 anti-foreign publications which are so full of monstrous falsehoods. 
 A Chinaman will steal almost as easily as he will lie, and will cheat 
 with a facility and deftness which make him proverbial for " ways that 
 are dark and tricks that are vain." 
 
 In Siam, Burma, and Assam the rule of untruthfulness still holds. A 
 fresh illustration of the ready application of the inveterate habit was 
 discovered by Dr. McKean of Laos, who has recently introduced vac- 
 cination among the people. As soon as its beneficial effects were 
 manifest, unprincipled charlatans were going about the country vac- 
 cinating the people with some worthless compound of their own, boldly 
 asserting that they had obtained vaccine virus from the foreigner in 
 Chieng Mai.^ Dr. Marston at Ambala has detected the same exhibi- 
 
 1 " ' Can yoii tell me in a sentence what the characteristics of the Japanese are ? ' 
 asked a puzzled visitor of one of the foreign instructors in government employ. The 
 reply is said to have been, 'It don't need a sentence; two words are sufficient. 
 They are conceit and deceit.^ ' They are the greatest liars on the face of the earth,' 
 wrote Mr. Harris, whose diary Dr. Griffis has just published."— yfl/a» Evangelist, 
 April, 1896, p. 215. 
 
 These statements may be too severe and sweeping, but it seems fairly clear that 
 untruthfulness and dishonesty are very prevalent in trade and in ordinary intercourse. 
 If a lie is politic and convenient not many will respect truth for its own sake. Yet 
 the sense of honor and the instinct of fidelity to trust are keen and are redeeming 
 traits in the Japanese character. 
 
 2 Douglas, " Society in China,'' p. 84. s Ball, " Things Chinese," p. 97. 
 « Williams, "The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., p. 836. 
 
 • The Church at Home and Abroad, May, 1894, p, 393. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-C^:.liISTIAN WORLD 101 
 
 tion of unscrupulous dishonesty in sly medicine-selling behind her back.^ 
 The Assamese have hardly a proper word in their language to indicate 
 honesty. "Trade does not go on without falsehood," is a proverb 
 among them.2 
 
 India is a realm where untruthfulness, dishonesty, and perjury are 
 all characteristic of the people. We mean characteristic in the sense 
 that they are notoriously common.* Advancing through Central Asia, 
 Tibet and the lands that lie in our pathway towards Persia present the 
 same monotonous traits of unscrupulousness in word and dealing, while 
 in Persia " every one walks warily and suspiciously through a maze of 
 fraud and falsehood." * According to the testimony of a Persian noble- 
 man in conversation with Mrs. Bishop, " Lying is rotting this country. 
 Persians tell lies before they can speak." The land is said to be " a 
 hotbed of lies and intrigue. Nothing can be done without stratagem. 
 The thing that strikes them about an Englishman is that he does not 
 lie." 5 To be called a liar in Persia is considered a very mild insult.^ 
 Curzon, in his book on Persia, remarks, " I am convinced that the true 
 son of Iran would sooner lie than tell the truth, and that he feels 
 twinges of desperate remorse when upon occasions he has thoughtlessly 
 strayed into veracity.'' 
 
 The Turkish Empire is full of dissimulation. The arts of lying are 
 not by any means monopolized by the Moslem population, but the 
 subject Christian races, incited by fear in the presence of their unscru- 
 pulous rulers, have lonig practised in self-defense habits of falsehood 
 and deceit, for which they are still noted. The whole routine of life is 
 fairly riddled with a running fire of deception and dishonest dealing. 
 
 Poor Africa may be said to be a continent of lies and a paradise of 
 thievery. The native savage is trained in the arts of plunder, and lives 
 by crafty wiles. Here, above all places on the face of the earth, a lie 
 seems to be loved for its own sake, and a man must be taken for a thief 
 and a rogue until he is proved to be the contrary.^ 
 
 The barbarous races of the Pacific Islands present no exception to 
 this sombre catalogue of nations who love a lie. Thievery and cheat- 
 
 1 Woman's Work far Woman, November, 1894, p. 301. 
 
 2 The Baptist Missionary Review, Madras, India, AprU, 1895, p. 128, 
 s Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 399-403. 
 
 * Bishop, "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. ii., p. 174. 
 ' Regions Beyond, May, 1894, p. 191. 
 
 • The Church Missionary Intelligencer, April, 1894, p. 242. 
 
 ' Ingham, " Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years," p. 293 ; Johnston, " Mis- 
 sionary Landscapes in the Dark Continent," p. 138; Carnegie, "Among the 
 Matabele," p. 68. 
 
102 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ing seem to be habitual and universal characteristics of these poor 
 people, who have known no higher standards of moraUty than those 
 suggested by the master passions of covetousness and lust.i 
 
 Substantially the same story applies to the West Indies ; and even 
 South America and Mexico, where nominal Christianity has been m 
 evidence for centuries, are lands where lying and dishonesty are griev- 
 ously to the front.2 
 
 II.-THE FAMILY GROUP 
 
 (Evils affecting primarily the family, and secondatily society through the family) 
 
 The historic result of heathenism is a demoralized family life. In 
 
 no particular does the inexorableness of the evolutionary process, apart 
 
 from the culture of Christianity, appear more clearly 
 
 The status and function . . •T_ii_jr 
 
 of the family in than m the Steady and mvanable trend of pagan 
 ancient classical society towards the disruption and practical de- 
 struction of the ideal family relation.* The status 
 of marriage and of domestic life in ancient Grecian and Roman civil- 
 ization was marked by a dreary degradation of the marital relation to 
 a political institution whose highest function was the service of the 
 State in producing citizens,* and in which all sacredness and refinement 
 seemed to have been sunk in communal laxity. Marriage was con- 
 sidered as a species of political incubator, and woman was simply a 
 necessary tool, to be used indiscriminately in case the highest interests 
 of the State required it. It was Plato's suggestion that in the perfect 
 republic the warriors should have the women in common. The aim of 
 marriage was purely civil, and was looked upon in the light of a duty 
 to the State.5 The natural result was a degraded womanhood and an 
 easy descent into a state of indifference as to all legal forms and re- 
 strictions. Ancient heathen civilization was committed by the force 
 of tradition and custom to the degradation of woman. It offered no 
 goal of social dignity, no inspiration of hope ; it gave no promise of 
 grateful recognition and sacred security. Woman was made to feel 
 
 1 Paton, "Autobiography," Part I., p. i6o; Cousins, " The Story of the South 
 Seas," p. ig. 
 
 2 The Gospel in all Lands, March, 1895, p. 99 ; The South American Missionary 
 Magazine, February, 1895, p. 38. 
 
 * Inge, " Society in Rome under the Caesars," p. 61. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 61 ; Schmidt, " The Social Results of Early Christianity," pp. 26-38. 
 » fiid., p. ^o. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 103 
 
 that she was a mere convenience, and was allowed to have no real basis 
 of self-respect. Her existence was, as a rule, passed in practical slavery, 
 and her outlook was one of hopeless inanity. This situation, as was 
 to be expected, developed those peculiar vices and weaknesses which, 
 with some notable exceptions, have marked her character in non-Chris- 
 tian society for ages. 
 
 On the other hand, Christianity from the first has recognized her 
 equality of soul, her personal rights, her moral and intellectual capa- 
 bilities, and has given her a sacred place of honor in the home. The 
 Christian ideal of the family has been substituted for the communal 
 function of a propagator of the State on the one hand, and a victim of 
 lust on the other. The secret springs of the social degradation of 
 woman in ancient heathenism are pride and selfishness on the part of 
 her immemorial masters. Pride kept her in subjection, relegated her 
 to a political mursery, and treated her with disdain and contumely. 
 Selfishness refused her considerate and kindly treatment, denied her 
 privileged companionship, and made her the sport of sensual desires.^ 
 
 One does not have to look long at the social status of woman to- 
 day in non-Christian lands to discover how largely that same pride 
 and selfishness take the old causal relation to her 
 present degradation. Even the sorry dignity ac- Little improvement 
 
 in the heathen civiliza- 
 
 corded her as the servant of the State has for the tions of to-day. 
 most part disappeared, and she has become rather 
 a useful instrument in maintaining the male line of descent for the 
 satisfaction of her master. Almost without exception, in the heathen 
 civilizations of the present day she is regarded with severe suspicion, 
 scant respect, and cool superciliousness. Her marital rights are scouted, 
 while as a rule her marital duties are jealously exacted. The con- 
 ception of an elevated, honored, and sacred womanhood may be said 
 to be sadly uncommon in the traditions and customs of purely heathen 
 civilization. Whatever of dignity and consideration she has received in 
 the modern transformations of non- Christian society has been the result, 
 more or less direct, of the modifying influence of Christian teaching. 
 
 The group of social evils which centres about the family presents sev- 
 eral salient aspects which call for specific notice. Among these we note : 
 
 1. The Degradation of Woman.— One of the most conspicuous 
 and unmistakable insignia of false religious systems is their treatment 
 of woman. They seem to be both bewildered and undone by her very 
 
 1 Ibid; pp. 42-44. 
 
104 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 existence. The sentiments they promulgate concerning her and the 
 treatment they accord her stamp them with defects and blunders dif- 
 ferentiating them at once and forever from the 
 The status of woman -mxt. code and the high ideal of Christianity, 
 christwdom. Ethnic religions and barbarous civilizations have 
 
 united their forces in the consignment of woman- 
 kind to a state of degradation— a fact which rises up in judgment against 
 these erroneous systems in all ages of history, and in no period more pro- 
 nouncedly than in our present century. She is still regarded, as of old, 
 in a non-Christian environment as a scandal and a slave, a drudge and 
 a disgrace, a temptation and a terror, a blemish and a burden— at once 
 the touchstone and stumbling-block of human systems, the sign and 
 shame of the non-Christian world. 
 
 The status of woman outside of Christendom may be indicated by 
 the estimate put upon her, by the opportunity given her, by the func- 
 tion assigned her, by the privilege accorded her, and by the service 
 expected of her. The estimate, as a rule, is low, rarely rising above a 
 physical or sensuous plane ; the opportunity afforded her is meagre, in 
 fact, often prohibitory ; the function assigned her is that of reproduction 
 and the gratification of man's baser passions ; the privilege extended to 
 her is rarely other than to be suspected, distrusted, guarded with jealous 
 seclusion, sometimes bought and sold as a chattel, married at the will of 
 fathers or brothers, or possibly consigned to some worse fate, beaten if 
 necessary, and kept in due subjection by tokens and signs of inferiority ; 
 the service expected of her is for the most part the menial drudgery 
 and the hard toil of hfe. This indictment is too general to pass un- 
 challenged in specific cases, and it will not, of course, hold in every 
 particular in all countries alike ; but as an average, all-around state- 
 ment it is not beyond what the facts will justify, and can be supported 
 by abundant and indubitable evidence. 
 
 It will be sufficient for our present purpose if we can gather into clus- 
 ters or groups the facts which indicate the social condition of woman, col- 
 lecting them, as it were, around some characteristic feature of her status. 
 Take, for instance, the various signs and tokens of inferiority which 
 are imposed upon her. These seem to form a motley group by them- 
 selves, clustering together in grim picturesqueness 
 The signs and tokens of as a grotesque medley of grimaces and scowls, of 
 her inferiority. haughty airs and self-complacent attitudes, of 
 boorish vulgarities and malicious insults. The 
 common bond of affinity running through them all is well symbolized 
 by that significant confession of a bland Hindu, that there was at least 
 
it f f :t i f % 
 
 s :t: , ' «+" . ■■ ^+'^ • '+* *v Y 
 
 ■ I I* ( ; ■ ,■ . win wVx win 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 ^^ i^^B 
 
 fi^ 
 
 i.^l>>^-lW^ ■■ 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 JS^^^ 
 
 ^srW. 
 
 jfl0^~ ""- " '.-V 
 
 -'-' ■: --. ^H:- "■ -. - 
 
 Woman's Auxiliary (P. E. M. S.), St. Mark's Church, Cape Palmas, Africa. 
 
 Woman's Auxiliary (P. E. M. S.), Osaka, Japan, 
 
 An Object Lesson in Christianized Womanhood. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 105 
 
 one doctrine upon which all Hindu sects were agreed : " We all believe 
 in the sanctity of the cow and in the depravity of woman." 
 
 The Japanese contribution to the picture has less of grossness and 
 more of natural refinement in it than that of any other Eastern nation. 
 Japanese women are gentler and more attractive than those of the ruder 
 lands of the East, and although the estimate in which they are held is 
 one of pronounced inferiority, yet the signs and tokens of it are not so 
 offensive as elsewhere. The usual exacting manifestations of subjection 
 to the husband are less conspicuous ; neither are they insisted upon 
 with such ruthless inconsiderateness as in China, India, and throughout 
 Mohammedan lands. The power of a father, natural and right within 
 proper hmitations, is, however, often grievously misused in committing 
 a daughter to a life of disrepute. Among the peasantry drudgery is 
 shared by husbands, fathers, and brothers. In fact, there is probably 
 no nation outside of Christendom, with possibly the exception of 
 Burma, where woman's lot is so free from the signs of inferiority as 
 in Japan.i 
 
 The Chinese contingent in the scene is largely in evidence. The 
 tokens of disdain are not wanting in China. Woman is " moulded out 
 of faults." Even the Chinese hieroglyphic for woman, if doubled, 
 signifies "to wrangle"; if trebled it means "intrigue"; a compound of 
 the symbols for " women " and " together " yields a composite sign 
 which signifies " to suspect, dislike, or loathe." ^ No husband would 
 willingly appear in public with his wife. If he is obliged to escort her, 
 she must walk well in front as a sign of her inferior position. If by 
 chance he refers to her, he is apt to designate her as his " dull thorn," 
 or some equally derogatory expression.^ Little or no mourning follows 
 her death. Her marriage is at the will, and in accordance with the 
 choice, of parents, who usually commit the matter to professional match- 
 makers, an untrustworthy and unscrupulous class, who generally drive 
 their own bargains with a view to their own sordid advantage.* The 
 bride rarely sees her husband before marriage, and does not even eat 
 with him afterwards. The Chinese idea of wifely demeanor is that of 
 abject dependence and subdued inanity. She is by no means to be 
 known outside of her own house, and even in it she must disappear al- 
 together if any chance male visitor should come.s ghe is considered 
 
 1 Griffis, "The Mikado's Empire," p. 554. 
 
 2 Douglas, "Society in China," p. 185 ; Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," 
 p. 246. 
 
 3 Douglas, " Society in China," p. 212. 
 
 < Ibid., p. 193. 6 Ibid., p. 211. 
 
106 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 a burden by her parents.i and must be their servant until married, which 
 amounts simply to an entrance into another state of servitude to her 
 parents-in-law, often a cruel and exacting bondage from which relief is 
 sometimes sought in suicide; 2 and even in this there is no escape from 
 the Hfelong lot of service, since she is thought to become in the next 
 life the servant of her husband, to whom, according to the Chinese 
 code, she belongs both for time and eternity.^ The husband's power 
 over her, like that of the father in Japan, is almost limitless.* 
 
 What has been said of the condition of women in China is appli- 
 cable, with hardly any variation, to her lot in Korea.s It is a relief, 
 however, to note that in both countries the every-day, commonplace life 
 of the laboring classes is largely free from this whole round of finical 
 and farcical exactions. 
 
 India makes a conspicuous contribution of signs and tokens of in- 
 feriority in her estimate of woman. She is there counted little more 
 than a " necessary machine for producing children." ^ Her degradation, 
 if indeed she is allowed to live, begins at her birth, which is a time of 
 condolence rather than of rejoicing, and when she is received rather as 
 a nuisance and a burden. '^ She is forbidden access to the sacred books 
 of the Hindu religion.^ While still young the only ceremonial acts of 
 worship and sacrifice allowed her are with a view to securing a husband,* 
 and after her marriage all right of approach to the gods in her own 
 name and on her own behalf is denied her. Even her worship must 
 be entirely in the name of her husband. i" After her marriage she is 
 bound forever in life and in death by indissoluble bonds to her husband, 
 according to the plain precepts of Manu,ii although the British law now 
 grants the liberty of remarriage to a widow. She must revere her hus- 
 band as a god, and bear meekly his infidelity without the slightest claim 
 to divorce.12 She must never go out of the house without the consent 
 of her husband. If he goes upon a journey, according to the teaching 
 of the Shastras, his wife shall not " divert herself by play, nor see any 
 public show, nor laugh, nor dress herself in jewels and fine clothes, nor 
 
 1 Fielde, " A Corner of Cathay," p. 72. 
 
 2 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 201 ; Douglas, " Society in China," 
 p. 214. 
 
 ' Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 486. 
 
 * Fielde, " A Corner of Cathay," p. 31. 
 
 5 GrifEs, " Corea," pp. 245, 252. 
 
 « Sir Monier- Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," p. 387. 
 
 ' Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 337. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 328. 9 Ibid., p. 340. 10 Ibid., p. 328. 
 
 " Ibid,, p, 328. w Ibid., p. 327, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 107 
 
 see dancing, nor hear music, nor sit at the window, nor ride out, nor 
 behold anything choice and rare, but shall fasten well the house door 
 and remain private." ^ And, finally, she must be reborn into the world 
 as a man before she can hope for any favored lot in the Hfe beyond.^ 
 
 In Mohammedan India, and all through the belt of Islamic lands to 
 the northwest corner of Africa, substantially the same spirit of punctili- 
 ous disdain of womankind prevails. The code of the harem is virtually 
 one, and it is the same with the doctrine of the zenana. 
 
 In savage Africa and among the barbarous nations of Polynesia the 
 signs and tokens of woman's inferiority become more painful and brutal. 
 She is bought and sold like a chattel, and for a consideration so insigni- 
 ficant that we can hardly rank her as superior to the domestic animals. 
 " Five large blue glass beads will buy a woman " in some sections of 
 Africa, but it takes " ten to buy a cow." Even stranger stories than 
 this are reported of daughters sold and wives purchased among the 
 interior tribes. She often eats with the dogs,' and she may be thankful 
 if when her husband dies she is not tossed with his dead body into the 
 same grave. Many a burly savage thinks it unmanly to treat her with 
 kindness and consideration. She is reckoned of little account to heart 
 or home. Inferiority sinks almost into worthlessness in the estimation 
 of masculine barbarians. 
 
 Notice again the various deprivations and restrictions, many of them 
 cruel and humiliating, which are inflicted upon her. She is deprived 
 of knowledge and all opportunity for intellectual 
 culture. She must not be taught to read.* The Her deprivations and 
 more profound her ignorance, the more safely is restrictions, 
 
 she preserved from the perils of wisdom. Accord- 
 ing to the latest census report in India, an average of only six women 
 in a thousand know how to read, and only one out of every hundred 
 between the ages of five and fifteen enjoys any educational advantage. 
 The total of absolutely illiterate women in the country amounts, in 
 round numbers, to 128,000,000.^ This same terrible standard of igno- 
 rance is maintained, with some modifications, throughout the entire 
 non-Christian world. The delights and benefits of knowledge, except 
 where Christian influences have been introduced, are ruthlessly denied 
 her as both unnecessary and dangerous. 
 
 * /*«</., p. 333. 
 
 » Hid., p. 328. 
 
 » Free Church of Scotland Monthly, March, 1893, p. 65. 
 
 « Ball, " Things Chinese," p. 486. 
 
 » The Missions of the World, October, 1894,?. 328. 
 
108 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In the same spirit she is deprived of her legitimate liberty. She is 
 imprisoned in the zenanas of North India, shut up in the harems of 
 Mohammedans, confined to the inner seclusion of her Chinese home, 
 and among the higher classes of Korea her isolation is perhaps more 
 prison-like and terrible than elsewhere.^ In China if she ventures out 
 of her house she must be carefully hidden in the sedan-chair, or if 
 she should appear upon the streets unguarded she must expect to be 
 jeered and berated, even if she is not insulted.^ Pleasant exceptions 
 to these severe restrictions may be noted in Japan, Siam, and Burma, 
 where women (except in the case of royalty) enjoy a freedom unusual 
 in Eastern lands. In Southern India the zenanas of the Punjab are 
 not known, and much more personal freedom is allowed. It is grati- 
 fying to note also that among the peasantry and the working classes, 
 hving for the most part in villages, these artificial restrictions are almost 
 altogether discarded. 
 
 A severe code of obligation is almost universally maintained with 
 reference to woman's duty in case of her husband's death. She is al- 
 most altogether deprived of the pleasure of mutual affection as a pre- 
 liminary basis of marriage, since, according to the immemorial standards 
 of the East, it is regarded as both immoral and indecorous.' If even 
 her betrothed should die before marriage she is expected in China to 
 refrain from all further alliance,* and in case of the death of her hus- 
 band the truly honorable thing for her to do is either to commit suicide 
 or remain forever a widow out of respect to his memory,^ although in 
 China and Korea the singular concession is made that she may be- 
 come a concubine and yet escape those depths of disgrace into which 
 she would fall by becoming a legitimate wife.* In Southern China this 
 duty of suicide has been performed in the presence of an applauding 
 crowd, with spectacular ceremonies.'' If the unfortunate widow should 
 shrink from the ordeal, it sometimes happens that the surviving friends 
 of her husband will force her to the performance of the rash act.* In 
 Korea substantially the same inexorable etiquette prevails,' although 
 in India the abominations of sati i" have now been legally prohibited. 
 
 IGriffis, "Corea,"p. 245. 
 
 « Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 487. a Ibid., p. 488. 
 
 < Williams, " The Middle Kingdom," vol. 5., p. 793. 
 
 » Douglas, " Society in China," pp. 191-216. 
 
 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 488; Griffis, " Corea," pp. 254, 255. 
 
 ■f Douglas, " Society in China," p. 217. 
 
 8 Ball, " Things Chinese," p. 489. 
 
 9 Griffis, " Corea," p. 255. 
 
 10 Often written " suttee," bat more correctly as above. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 109 
 
 If, however, her husband lives, she must be prepared to welcome 
 other women to share her conjugal rights, as he may desire ; not, to be 
 sure, as legitimate wives, but as concubines. The same rule prevails in 
 this respect in China, Korea, and Japan,i while in India and through- 
 out the Mohammedan world there may be several legal wives. In 
 Africa the universal rule is as many wives as a man can purchase, and 
 the more he possesses the greater his social dignity. The position of a 
 concubine is often one of bitter bondage not only to the husband, but 
 also to the first or legal wife.' If the hour of divorce comes, as it often 
 does at the whim of the husband, nothing is easier than the destruction 
 of all her legal rights by a cruel and arbitrary decree. There is one 
 universal rule in this matter throughout the non- Christian world. It is 
 as quickly and irreversibly done in Japan as elsewhere.' A single 
 passionate declaration will accomplish it in Korea, in China, in India, 
 in every harem of Islam, and wherever an African savage chooses to 
 speak the word. The power of life and death seems to be almost uni- 
 versally in the hands of the husband, unless the authority of some 
 civilized government can call him to account. " Either to be killed or 
 to be married is the universal female fate " in China.* In Japan, even 
 a father must be obeyed to the extent of self-immolation, if required.^ 
 In times of dire distress and famine, alike in China and in Africa, wives 
 and daughters may be sold without restraint in the open market." In 
 such strange ways as these is woman robbed of her birthright and de- 
 prived of her heritage. 
 
 There is still a final group of indignities and burdens, both physical 
 and moral, which pertain to woman's lot in her non-Christian en- 
 vironment. The mere list of physical injuries in- 
 flicted upon her is painful. In almost all Eastern Her indignities and 
 lands she is beaten without legal restraint and burdens, 
 
 maltreated sometimes with brutal cruelty. She 
 is often neglected when sick, as in many an Indian zenana. She is 
 married everywhere at a tender age, — in India as early as seven years, 
 —and the marriage is often consummated at eleven or twelve.'' There 
 
 1 Fielde, "A Corner of Cathay," p. 28; Griffis, "The Mikado's Empire," 
 
 P- 556- 
 
 2 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 20Z. 
 
 ' Bacon, "Japanese Girls and Women," p. "}(>. 
 * Fielde, " A Corner of Cathay," p. 25. 
 5 Griffis, " The Mikado's Empire," p. 555. 
 
 « Douglas, "Society in China," p. 212; Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," 
 p. 204; The Church Missionary Intelligencer, May, 1895, p. 378. 
 T Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 345. 
 
110 CMRlSTlAlsr MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 seems to be no law in Mohammedan lands restricting the wishes of her 
 rulers in this respect. Among the Kabyles she is often a married child 
 at seven or eight.^ Nor is there any constraint of custom as to the age 
 of the bridegroom, who may be far advanced in years and yet married 
 to a child.2 Amid the dismal barbarism of Chinese Turkestan even 
 young children are sometimes drugged and forcibly married.^ In one 
 of the islands of the New Hebrides a woman's marriage is attended by 
 the painful ordeal of having her " two upper front teeth knocked out by 
 the medicine-man, aided by half a dozen old women, who hold the girl's 
 arms and legs while the cruel operation is being performed."* Among 
 the African tribes she is always hable to the charge of witchcraft, ex- 
 posing her to torture or death, as among the Matabele and the Bule 
 and the tribes of the East Equatorial region. In Uganda a wife was 
 recently killed upon the supposition that she made her husband sick.* 
 On some of the South Pacific Islands, as in Aneityum and Efate, she 
 is liable to be buried alive in the same grave with her husband or sacri- 
 ficed in his honor by methods of extraordinary cruelty.* Among all 
 savage and ignorant races she is likely to be the victim of brutal quack- 
 ery and barbarous surgical torture in her times of peril and distress. 
 When widowhood becomes her lot she is everywhere the victim of sus- 
 picion and often of cruel neglect.'^ Not infrequently her unprotected 
 condition exposes her to violence. In China even the bright days of 
 her childhood are shadowed by the lingering torture of bound, or rather 
 crushed, feet, in accordance with that abominable custom. If after- 
 wards in maturer hfe she is obliged to work, the burdens of her toil are 
 immensely enhanced by the physical disabiHty of her maimed person.* 
 The rough-and-tumble toil of life in mountain and field and garden 
 seems to be her lot everywhere in heathen lands. Her daily lesson is 
 drudgery, and throughout the East and in Africa every form of hard 
 work is her appointed lot. She is " a hewer of wood and a carrier of 
 water." In the fields and vineyards and olive orchards, on the tea 
 plantations and at the wine-presses, carrying heavy loads upon her back 
 and heavy jars upon her head, sometimes yoked to plows, usually walk- 
 ing while men ride, frequently with her babe strapped on her back— 
 
 1 Work and Workers, May, 1895, P- 201. 
 
 2 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 346. 
 
 » Lansdell, " Chinese Central Asia," vol. i., p. 409. 
 
 * The Independent, February 15, 1894, p. 16. 
 
 8 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, May, 1895, p. 378. 
 
 * The Missionary, January, 1895, p. 36. 
 
 T Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 204. 
 
 8 Henry, " The Cross and the Dragon," pp. 49, 50. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRlSTlAN WORLD 111 
 
 she goes through the weary round of her daily task. The filthy and 
 loathsome service of fertiUzing the soil and of preparing the fuel, made 
 from offal, is always her menial task.^ The situation is well illustrated 
 by the story of a native African who ordered his wife to carry him on 
 her shoulders over a deep and perilous ford of a river. She obeyed 
 his command successfully. The husband, on being remonstrated with 
 by a white man, asked in astonishment, " Then whose wife should carry 
 me over if my own does not? " ^ Thus, while it is true that there are 
 many industries in which women can and do happily engage, yet their 
 lot, as a rule, is to be the slave and drudge of men who spend their time 
 in idleness or sport, with no effort to lighten the burdens of life falling 
 so heavily upon the women.^ 
 
 Her indignities and burdens are not, however, physical alone. There 
 are outrages upon her virtue inflicted by lust and greed. The Laws of 
 Manu give the old Indian estimate of woman.* She is regarded with 
 intense distrust and counted as simply a malevolent snare to men. If 
 a widow she is ever the victim of malicious gossip. " Scandals cluster 
 around a widow's door," is a Chinese proverb.^ " No daughter's virtue 
 can be praised until she is dead," is an Indian proverb.^ " She is mar- 
 lied to the gods " in India, which means that she is married to no one, 
 although the slave of all. She is set apart and trained for the inde- 
 cencies of the nautch while still a child.'' If there is any difficulty 
 attending her marriage, so inexorable is the law that no one must re- 
 main unmarried that she is given perhaps as the fortieth or fiftieth wife 
 to some old man among the Brahmans whose special business it is to 
 marry girls for a consideration, so that if they fail to find a husband 
 in any other way this resource is still open.* Then, again, according 
 to the savage etiquette of African hospitality, they must serve as oc- 
 casion may demand in the capacity of temporary wives to guests. 
 
 As might be expected, the natural result of woman's environment 
 and experience where Christianity is unknown is seen in her dwarfed 
 intellectual capacity and her moral and physical degradation. Her 
 service to society has in it necessarily little that is helpful or elevating. 
 
 1 Houghton, '"Women of the Orient," p. 305. 
 
 2 Johnston, " Reality Versus Romance in South Central Africa," p. 6$. 
 5 Cousins, "The Story of the South Seas," p. 143. 
 
 * Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 326-336. 
 5 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 245. 
 
 • Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 334. 
 
 ^ "The Women of India," p. 78, Papers on Indian Social Reform, Madras, 
 1892. 
 
 » Wilkins, " Modem Hinduism," p. 347. 
 
112 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Among savage races even the instincts of her humanity seem to have 
 given place to a grovelling and loathsome animalism. In the higher 
 viralks of heathenism she seems doomed to live in 
 The result upon her an atmosphere of suspicion, ignorance, and super- 
 personal character, stition. The Hindu zenana and the Moslem ha- 
 rem are, as a rule, the haunts of frivolous inanity, 
 fleshly vulgarity, and intriguing jealousy. She knows little of the true 
 ideal of home, and appreciates but feebly the dignity and responsibility 
 of motherhood. False conceptions of duty, virtue, and responsibility 
 govern her life; society is thus robbed of the helpful influence, the 
 brightness, the fragrance, and the charm of her pure companionship, 
 and the world is enfeebled, darkened, and saddened by its absence. 
 Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in one of his stories of Indian life, gives the 
 following trenchant verdict as to the real secret of India's degradation. 
 He says by the mouth of one of his characters : " What's the matter 
 with this country is not in the least political, but an all-round entangle- 
 ment of physical, social, and moral evils and corruptions, all, more or 
 less, due to the unnatural treatment of women. You can't gather figs 
 from thistles, and so long as the system of infant marriage, the prohi- 
 bition of the remarriage of widows, the lifelong imprisonment of wives 
 in a worse than penal confinement, and the withholding from them of 
 any kind of education or treatment as rational beings continues, the 
 country cannot advance a step. Half of it is morally dead, and worse 
 than dead, and that is just the half from which we have a right to look 
 for the best impulses. It is right here where the trouble is, and not in 
 any political considerations whatsoever. The foundations of their life 
 are rotten — utterly rotten — and beastly rotten. The men talk of their 
 rights and privileges. I have seen the women that bear these very 
 men, and again — may God forgive the men ! " 
 
 It has been said, and no doubt truthfully, that, in spite of all her 
 disabilities, there is much of happiness as well as of dignity and influ- 
 ence in woman's lot in Eastern lands. This is 
 
 Some modifications of ... 
 
 the dark picture which Certainly the case in J apan, where there are many 
 are to the credit of bright modifications of the dark picture which has 
 
 Eastern womanhood, 
 
 been presented, and where woman is naturally 
 winsome and gentle, and, according to the standards of her country, 
 refined and modest, with a degree of neatness, diligence, devotion, 
 self-sacrifice, and affectionate concern for those she loves which places 
 her on perhaps the highest plane of womanly excellence outside of the 
 home life of Christendom. We must bear in mind in this connection 
 that there is no zenana system in Japan, and very Uttle physical ill- 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 113 
 
 treatment of women. They are looked upon rather as babies and toys. 
 It is not unusual also in China, as well as in Japan, in Korea, and even 
 in India, for women to win their way in some instances to a position 
 of dignity, influence, and power, which secures the respect and ad- 
 miration of all ; yet these cases are confessedly exceptional, and they 
 are especially creditable and honorable to woman herself in that she 
 rises above her limitations and discouragements, and exhibits such 
 characteristic cheerfulness, contentment, and patient docility in such 
 untoward siuroundings. The credit of this is due to her, and not to 
 her environments, and shows her to be a tactful and resourceful con- 
 queror of circumstances. Mere happiness, moreover, is not a sign that 
 all is well. Slaves may be happy in their slavery, the ignorant may be 
 contented in their degradation, the oppressed may have such a hope- 
 less and narrow view of life that they make the best of their condition, 
 and move blindly and carelessly on in the path of destiny; but this 
 does not make their degradation the less real ; it only reveals the ca- 
 pacity of endurance, of cheerful submission, and patient contentment, 
 which abides in humanity. 
 
 2. Polygamy and Concubinage. — Incidental mention has already 
 been made of these subjects, but they can hardly be passed over without 
 some more explicit and detailed reference to the 
 facts concerning them. The unique teachings of '"■'« """■*' dignity of 
 
 _ . . . ° . . , ° , the Christian code of 
 
 Christianity concerning mamage form one of the marriage, 
 
 most unmistakable evidences of the hallowed 
 origin of the Christian code. It is in conflict with the immemorial 
 customs of human history, stamping with instant and uncompromising 
 disapproval the ordinary ways of men as revealed in the conventional 
 non-Christian attitude of society through all time. The wisdom of 
 Christ seems to have led Him to depart from His usual custom, and to 
 legislate in detail as to the invariable Christian rule of morahty in the 
 case of marriage.i He realized that in this matter not only principle 
 but precept must be explicit and final if the world was to be guided 
 aright. 
 
 The necessity for definite directions on the part of the Founder of 
 Christianity becomes all the more manifest when we note the devices 
 that have been popular both in ancient and modern society, except 
 where the divine code has ruled, to give a large scope to sensual in- 
 stincts, while at the same time avoiding the recognized scandal of 
 
 1 Brace, " Gesta Christi," p. 30. 
 
114 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 universal lewdness. The different forms of marriage recognized by 
 Roman law, especially that of usus, gave wide vent to laxity, while 
 even to these was added, in the Augustan age, the omnium gatherum 
 of concubinage.i In the non-Christian world of to-day polygamy and 
 concubinage, in connection with easy divorce, are still the recognized 
 expedients for giving an official sanction to the wanton range of passion 
 without the sacrifice of social caste. The convenient fiction of legality 
 and the powerful password of custom lift the disgrace and save the 
 pride of the Eastern world. In the East, as in the West, there is a 
 ready condemnation and denunciation, in theory at least, if not always 
 in practice, of the vice of prostitution. Nowhere will we find it more 
 vigorously and scornfully berated than among Moslems, Hindus, and 
 other Eastern nationalities. A Moslem will defend his piety and moral 
 standing as passionately as he guards the honor of his hidden retinue 
 of the harem, and will repudiate with indignation any hint of irregu- 
 larity or license in his habits of life. He insists, of course, that he is not 
 holden to Christian standards and cannot be judged by them, his own 
 moral code being the only one that he acknowledges. Thus we will 
 find that the entire non-Christian world is prepared to defend stoutly 
 the traditional moral environment of marriage, including polygamy, 
 concubinage, and divorce at will, as wisely and happily ordered so as 
 to combine a maximum of privilege with a minimum of scandal. This 
 elastic legalization of compromising relations gives, in the eyes of the 
 Oriental, a sufficient respectability to what would otherwise be pro- 
 nounced illicit and scandalous. 
 
 Strictly speaking, therefore, according to the recognized social code, 
 
 there is no polygamy in Japan, Korea, or China, and comparatively 
 
 little even in India. The rule is that there is only 
 
 Licensed polygamy a one bona fide legal wife of the first rank, and she 
 
 characteristic of ethnic ., , . , 
 
 systems. Tides but once m her lifetime in the bridal chair.' 
 
 To be sure, there are secondary wives and concu- 
 bines, but this does not interfere with the monogamous supremacy and 
 dignity of the first or chief wife, to whom the others often bear the 
 relation of servants and underlings. In the imperial palaces, however, 
 there are ranks upon ranks,' and among the mandarins and the more 
 wealthy classes of Japan, Korea, and China there is an indulgence in 
 this domestic luxury proportionate to position and ability. While this 
 is all true, it must be said, however, that, except among the higher 
 
 1 Schmidt, " The Social Results of Early Christianity," p, 42. 
 
 2 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 289. 
 
 » Pouglas, " Society in China," p. 15. 
 
A Japanese Judge and Family. 
 (The wife and daughters are Christians.) 
 
 A Syrian Pastor and Family. 
 
 Christian Homes in the Orient. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 115 
 
 classes in these countries, the polygamous household is the exception. 
 The middle and lower classes, presumably rather under the stress of 
 circumstances, usually observe the rule of monogamy.i In Siam and 
 Laos, also, polygamy is confined to a few,' while in Burma it prevails to 
 a very moderate extent. 
 
 In India the rule among the Hindus in all ordinary castes is one wife, 
 with the usual margin for concubines.' In case, however, the first wife 
 after seven years fails to bear a son, another wife is sure to be taken. 
 There is one conspicuous exception to this general observation of 
 monogamy, and this is among the Kulin Brahmans, whose bewildering 
 code of polygamy without bounds or restraints is too complicated to 
 deal with here.* These much-married Brahmans, now found mostly in 
 Bengal, seem to be able in view of their caste distinction to sell them- 
 selves as husbands to innumerable wives, whose friends will gladly pay 
 a good round sum for the privilege of having daughters married in such 
 an exalted connection. In India, as elsewhere, rajahs and princes are, 
 as usual, unrestrained polygamists, while the lower classes are, as a rule, 
 monogamists. The singular custom of polyandry is rarely met with. 
 It exists, however, among the peasantry of Tibet, among some of the 
 Nilgiri Hill tribes of South India, and somewhat also in Ceylon. 
 
 The well-known rule of the Koran limits the Mohammedan to four 
 legitimate wives at any one time, with a large license as to concubines 
 and slaves. The facility of divorce, however, is always a ready ex- 
 pedient to make a convenient vacancy, so that the limit need not be 
 exceeded, and the letter of the law observed.^ The Turkish harem and 
 the Persian andarun are one and the same, and exhibit substantially 
 the same phases of hfe.^ In Persia, moreover, an audaciously flagrant 
 device of a temporary marriage seems to be in use to give a fictitious 
 standing to a laxity wholly vicious and deplorable. This so-called 
 marriage may be for a day or for years.' At certain seasons of the year, 
 when cultivators of the soil require special help, in accordance with this 
 custom they adopt the expedient of marrying with a temporary con- 
 tract as many women as they require. In the spring of the year the 
 rice-planters of Ghilan and Mazanderan will thus secure a full con- 
 
 1 Holcombe, "The Real Chinaman,'' p. 77; Fielde, "A Corner of Cathay," 
 p. 28. 
 
 2 Tht Missionary Review of the World, January, 1895, p. 9. 
 s Thoburn, " India and Malaysia," p. 368. 
 
 < Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 179-190. 
 
 5 Thoburn, " India and Malaysia," p. 368. 
 
 » Bishop, "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. ii., p. 109. 
 
 " Benjamin, " Persja and the Persians," pp. 45i-4$3- 
 
116 _ CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tingent of cultivators of their fields, and when the autumn harvesting 
 is over, by a process of wholesale divorce the contract comes to an end.i 
 
 The savage races brush aside all these fine distinctions of moral 
 finesse so popular among the more advanced Orientals, and recognize 
 no legal limitations whatever to their polygamous practices. Wives 
 are a badge of social distinction, and give a princely 6clat to the house- 
 hold. Throughout the whole African Continent and in the island homes 
 of paganism the highest ambition, next to distinction in war, seems to 
 be unlimited ownership of wives.' 
 
 3. Adultery and Divorce.— According to the social and legal 
 standards of non-Christian lands, using the term in its strict technical 
 sense, there is less adultery than one would expect. So far as the wife 
 is concerned, she is guarded with extraordinary care, and her punish- 
 ment in case of a lapse is severe and merciless. In theory it is usually 
 death either by strangling or lapidation, but this extreme penalty is in 
 most cases allowed to lapse in practice. So far as the man is concerned, 
 the liberty which he claims to take to himself under legal forms sec- 
 ondary wives and concubines, and the right which he exercises of swift 
 and informal divorce, put adultery in its technical sense outside the 
 usual range of his indulgence. He finds such large license within the 
 limits of custom and safety that an adulterous connection is not sought 
 for, nor is it, as a rule, very practicable. Judged, however, by Christian 
 standards, half the flimsy marital relations of the Asiatic and African 
 nations are adulterous. 
 
 Divorce is everywhere easily accomplished with Uttle formaUty and 
 
 upon the most trivial pretexts. Almost the only, restraint is the fear of 
 
 scandal or of personally offending the relatives of 
 
 Arbitrary power of . . ^ " 
 
 divorce a conceded the Wife. It is practically at the will of the hus- 
 right in heathen band. It is his prerogative, not the wife's. It is 
 
 systems. . . 
 
 hardly possible, nor is it usually conceded even in 
 theory in non-Christian law, that a woman can either divorce or secure 
 a divorce from her husband, although a separation by mutual' consent 
 can be everywhere resorted to without fear of legal consequences. A 
 power so arbitrary and despotic on the part of the husband is, as might 
 
 » Browne, "A Year among the Persians," p. 462 ; " Report of the Presbyterian 
 Board of Foreign Missions, U. S. A., 1895," p. 166. 
 
 2 Rowley, " Twenty Years in Central Africa," p. 125 ; Tyler, " Forty Years 
 among the Zulus," p. 117; Johnston, " Missionary Landscapes in the Dark Con- 
 tinent," p. 168; Ingham, " Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years," p. 316. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 117 
 
 be expected, a facile expedient for wrecking the marriage relation. 
 It is the ready instrument of wanton desire, and at the same time 
 introduces heartless uncertainty and gross injustice into the lot of 
 woman. She is the passive victim, and has no redress for the wrong 
 done her. 
 
 In China the husband's power of divorce seems to be unlimited so 
 far as his secondary wives are concerned. In the case of the first or 
 chief wife, however, he must run the gantlet of possible complications 
 arising from opposition on the part of her family friends.^ Still further 
 embarrassments arise in case the wife's parents have died since her 
 marriage, or if she has served the husband's parents until their death, 
 or if her husband has grown rich since her marriage. Theoretically the 
 husband is free to divorce for any one of the " seven justifying causes," 
 namely, "barrenness, lewdness,- jealousy, talkativeness, thievery, dis- 
 obedience to her husband's parents, and loathsome disease." ^ This 
 would seem to open the door to the unrestricted exercise of the 
 right. In reality, however, pubhc opinion and the power of precedent 
 and custom exert considerable influence in restraining intemperate 
 impulses on the part of the husband. 
 
 In Japan the list of justifying causes is substantially identical with 
 those mentioned above, and the husband is practically under some 
 constraint for the same reasons that hold in China, especially the pos- 
 sibility of offending the wife's family in case she is from the higher ranks 
 of society.^ Among the lower classes of Japan, however, there is much 
 less restraint, and divorce is frequently resorted to. In the five years 
 from 1885 to i88g, inclusive, there was a total of 1,579,648 marriages 
 in the Empire of Japan, and a total of 559,032 divorces^or an average 
 of 111,806 divorces annually, or one divorce to a fraction (2.88) less 
 than every three marriages. In 1891 the marriages were 325,651, and 
 the divorces 112,411, substantially the same proportion. Comparing 
 these statistics with those of France for the same years, we find that 
 from 1885 to 1889, inclusive, there were 29,148 divorces, or an average 
 of 5829 annually, while the proportion of divorces to marriages was, 
 in 1885, 14 for 1000, which had increased, however, so that it amounted 
 to 24 for 1000 in 1891. In the United States there were slightly over 
 40,000 divorces granted in 1894. Recent legislation in Japan has 
 modified somewhat the legal features of divorce, so that at the pre- 
 sent moment the whole subject is under the cognizance of law in a 
 
 1 Ball, "Things Chinese," p. 131. 
 
 2 Fielde, " A Corner of Cathay," p. 32. 
 
 3 Griffis, "The Mikado's Empire," p. Sgf. 
 
118 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 way which was unknown a few years ago. It has become possible 
 now for a wife to legally sue for a divorce.^ The immemorial rule, 
 however, has been that a wife must give her husband full liberty to 
 do as he will and should not even be jealous if he sought other 
 society.^ 
 
 In India divorce does not seem to be prevalent, except among 
 Moslems.' The Islamic code of divorce gives more Hcense than is 
 usual among Oriental nations. It is almost literally without restraint, 
 except that the husband is required to pay the divorced wife's dowry.* 
 The absolute secrecy which enshrouds the Moharrmiedan harem covers 
 many dark and cruel wrongs. According to Moslem tradition and 
 custom, the Mohammedan husband can exercise absolute and irrespon- 
 sible power within the precincts of his harem. Even the police are 
 prohibited from entering on any pretext whatever. He can cast out 
 his wife simply by the use of a familiar spoken formula, brief and per- 
 emptory, and she has no redress. 
 
 In Turkey divorce is often resorted to among Moslems, and, except 
 that certain legal formalities are required among the upper classes, it is 
 a commonplace of domestic life. No disgrace attends it, nor is it any 
 barrier to subsequent alliances. Even girls not yet twenty years of 
 age may have been divorced and remarried a dozen times. This is vir- 
 tually prostitution under guise of domestic relations, and the final lot 
 of the victim is sooner or later to become a social outcast. 
 
 In India an important aspect of this whole question is the proper 
 regulation, by legal enactments, of the undoubted right of divorce where 
 Christian converts are unjustly bound by non- Christian alliances. Ac- 
 cording to Mohammedan law in India, conversion to Christianity on 
 the part of either husband or wife dissolves the marriage tie, and the 
 party remaining a Moslem is free to contract another alliance. Legis- 
 lation is needed which will secure to native Christian converts under 
 these circumstances a legal divorce which will free them from bondage. 
 In the case also of child marriage, which is regarded by present British 
 law as binding, although it may fiave been contracted in infancy and 
 remains still unconsummated, legislative reform is needed which will 
 allow it to be regarded in the Ught simply of betrothal.^ 
 
 1 Cf. " Civil Code of Japan: Book on the Law of the Person," paragraph 87, 
 p. 31 (English translation). 
 
 2 Mrs. Bishop, " Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," vol. i., p. 333. 
 8 Thoburn, " India and Malaysia," p. 368. 
 
 < Indian Evangelical Review, July, 1895, p. 119. 
 
 s " Report of the Bombay Conference, 1892," vol. i., pp. 56-95. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 119 
 
 4. Child Marriage and Widowhood.— Child marriage is in de- 
 fiance of a law of nature at once beneficent and supreme. Its evils are 
 multiform and deplorable. It is physically inju- 
 rious, morally deleterious, mentally weakening, de- The evils of child 
 structive of family dignity, productive of enfeebled marriage, 
 
 offspring, increases the probability of early widow- 
 hood, provokes the curse of poverty, and tends to rapid over-popula- 
 tion.i The testimony of native Indians of education and independent 
 judgment (especially medical men) is clear and emphatic as to its sad 
 and dangerous tendencies.^ The population of India to-day is largely 
 the children of children, and, as marriage is contracted with little or no 
 regard to the ability of the husband to support a family, this is one 
 secret of the terrible and grinding poverty of the country. National 
 vigor in many sections of the great peninsula has suffered a notable 
 decline, owing to the constant stream of infant life bom of imma- 
 turity, and called to struggle with insanitary conditions and blighting 
 disease. 
 
 Child marriage in its worst forms seems to be associated with the 
 higher castes, among whom also the restrictions of intermarriage with 
 other castes are inexorable, and involve a narrowing of the marriage 
 relation within a too limited circle. The custom of infant marriage is 
 not equally prevalent throughout India, and facts which may be true 
 of one section of the country may not apply to others ; yet the practice 
 is sufficiently prevalent to make it a gigantic evil of Indian society and 
 characteristic of the country. The census of 1891 reports 17,928,640 
 girls in India between the ages of five and nine. Of this number 
 2,201,404 were already married and 64,040 were widows. The report 
 further shows that there were 12,168,592 girls between the ages of ten 
 and fourteen, and of this number 6,016,759 '^^'^^ married and 174,532 
 were widows. In the province of Mysore the number of girls married 
 under nine years of age in the year 1881 was 12,000, while in 1S91 it 
 was i8,ooo, showing an increase of 50 per cent. In 1891 out of 971,500 
 married women 11,157 had been married at or before the age of four 
 years, and 180,997 between the ages of five and nine, showing that one 
 out of every five of the wives was married under the age of nine. There 
 were in the province at that time 23,000 child widows below the age of 
 fourteen. The total of married children in all India under five years of 
 age is as follows : bojw, 103,000 ; girls, 258,000. The total of widowed 
 children under five years of age is, boys, 7000, and girls, 14,000. 
 
 1 " The Women of India," pp. 60-64. 
 « " Sanitary Reform in India," p. 29. 
 
120 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The average age of marriage for girls among the Brahmans is between 
 six and seven. Some are married before seven years of age. Nearly 
 all are married before ten. Even babes are often married as soon as 
 they are born.i Twelve seems to be the limit of age beyond which it 
 is a disgrace for the girl not to be married and a sin for the father not 
 to have found her a husband.^ 
 
 The discussions of the Indian sacred books as to the marriageable 
 age of girls are not iit for quotation. They are part of the prurient 
 vulgarity of Hinduism in its treatment of woman. The reasons usually 
 assigned for infant marriage are that it is essential to the peace of a 
 man's soul after death that he should have children who can duly per- 
 form his funeral rites, and that early marriages increase the probability of 
 offspring, and on this account are to be commended.' It is also argued 
 that the custom tends to morality, and that it is justified in India for 
 physical reasons. The arguments that early marriages are required in 
 the interests of morality and are justified by the early development of 
 Indian girls are not sustained by facts. On the contrary, the custom 
 is a dangerous stimulus to immorality, and quickens to an unnatural 
 precocity the relation of the sexes. It is, moreover, denied by com- 
 petent authority that climatic conditions in India are to the extent 
 claimed responsible for early maturity. The pernicious customs of 
 the country as regards marriage have unbalanced nature and prema- 
 turely forced the physical and mental growth of Indian children of 
 both sexes.* 
 
 The physical sufferings induced by early marriage form a shock- 
 ing indictment against a cruel custom.^ In a recent memorial, signed 
 Further restrictive ^^ Afty-five lady doctors, petitioning the Indian 
 legislation concerning Government on the subject of child marriage, and 
 infant marriage greatly forwarded by Mrs. Dr. Mansell of Lucknow to 
 
 needed. 
 
 the Governor-General, a strong appeal based upon 
 medical experience was presented, urging that fourteen years be the 
 minimum age for the consummation of marriage. The appeal is sus- 
 tained by most pitiful facts, drawn from medical experience, as to the 
 physical cruelties attending the prevalent custom of infant marriage. 
 According to what is known as the "Native Marriage Act" of 187a, 
 forced marriages are prohibited under the age of eighteen for men and 
 
 1 " The Women of India," p. 56. 
 
 a im., p. 57. 
 
 8 Sir Monier-Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," p. 387. 
 
 « " The Women of India," p. 59. 
 
 • Ibid., p. 61. 
 
Bridal Scenes in India. Mission Boarding School for Girls (A. B. M. U.), Ongole. 
 
 Child Marriage versus Christian Culture. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD VJ,! 
 
 fourteen for women, while the written consent of parents or guardians 
 is required when either party is under twenty-one. This at first sight 
 seems to be valuable legislation, but, as the law remains a dead letter 
 unless its protection is sought, it practically has little effect as a remedy 
 for existing evils, since neither parents nor children appear inclined, 
 except very rarely, to avail themselves of its provisions. According to 
 the penal code of India, the minimum age for the consummation of 
 marriage, so far as Hindus are concerned, was until quite recently ten 
 years. It has now been raised to twelve by an act which became law 
 on March 19, 1891. The significance of this is that it is regarded as 
 a crime to consummate the marriage earlier than twelve years of age, 
 but, owing to the supreme difficulty of prosecution and the many em- 
 barrassments attending it, the infraction of the law is rarely brought to 
 book, and in the great majority of instances it is practically inoperative. 
 As the limitation of ten years was often disregarded, so in all likelihood 
 that of twelve years will be observed even to a less extent.^ The Parsees 
 have secured for themselves by special legislation in their interest the 
 age of fourteen, as also have the Brahmos (members of reform societies, 
 like the Brahmo-Somaj and others) at their own request.^ The Kulin 
 Brahmans,^ however, seem to break all rules with their barbarous customs. 
 It is not unusual for individual members of this marrying syndicate to 
 have from fifty to seventy-five girl wives scattered about the country, so 
 that when the much-married husband dies it brings the social miseries 
 and sorrows of widowhood upon a large circle of helpless victims.* 
 There is at the present time much agitation for new Indian legislation 
 
 1 Sir Monier- Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," p. 387; "The Women 
 of India," p. 68. 
 
 2 " The Women of India," p. 67. 
 s Ibid., p. 81. 
 
 * Rev. Robert P. Wilder, of Kolhapur, India, has forwarded the following ex- 
 tract from a speech of Babu Dinanath Gangoli, delivered at the Sixth Social Confer- 
 ence, Allahabad, 1892: 
 
 " It has been advanced in certain quarters that Kulinism is almost extinct, and 
 that it is useless to take any trouble about it. Gentlemen, in my early days it was 
 my belief that the practice would not last a decade more, but three decades have 
 passed away and it is still prevalent. Some time ago I myself did not think much 
 about Kulinism, considering that it had lost a good deal of its force ; but three years 
 ago, coming to know of the case of a Kulin who had left upwards of one hundred 
 widows at his death, I was led to make inquiries about polygamous marriages among 
 Kulins." 
 
 After acknowledging his indebtedness to the editor of the Sanjwani, through 
 whose good offices the investigation was made, the result of the inquiry is stated as 
 follows : 
 
132 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 upon this burning subject.^ Another point upon which reform legislation 
 is needed is to secure the non-recognition on the part of British law 
 of the binding vahdity of infant marriage, so customary in India. It 
 should be regarded in the light of a betrothal until bona fide marriage 
 relations are established.^ 
 
 We have referred as yet only to India, but the custom of early mar- 
 riages is known also in Korea, China, Chinese Turkestan, Persia, Turkey, 
 along the northern coast of Africa, and largely throughout the Conti- 
 nent, and it produces everywhere the same evil results. 
 
 Child widowhood is a natural result of child marriage, and the evil 
 
 is greatly enhanced by the uncompromising prohibition of remarriage in 
 
 India. This singular prohibition is one of the fruits 
 
 The present status of ,..,,.. 
 
 Indian legislation of the traditional subjection 01 woman. According 
 concerning the (q the social and Tcligious standards of India, she 
 
 remarriage of widows. . . 
 
 is regarded as still bound to do reverence even 
 to a dead husband, and his dominion is considered as lasting during 
 her life, even though he has ceased to live. This idea of enslavement 
 
 " Information was collected from 426 villages, showing 618 bigamists and 520 
 polygamists. Of the polygamists 
 
 180 have each 
 
 1 3 
 
 wives 
 
 3 have each 
 
 I 20 
 
 wives 
 
 98 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 I has 
 
 23 
 
 tt 
 
 54 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 4 have each 
 
 125 
 
 (( 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 I has 
 
 26 
 
 « 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 I " 
 
 27 
 
 <( 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 . I " 
 
 28 
 
 <i 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 I " 
 
 29 
 
 « 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 4 have each 
 
 30 
 
 f( 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 ir 
 
 
 2 " " 
 
 32 
 
 (( 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 I has 
 
 34 
 
 fi 
 
 S 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 I " 
 
 35 
 
 « 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 I " 
 
 36 
 
 K 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 I " 
 
 5° 
 
 tt 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 I " 
 
 52 
 
 tt 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 I " 
 
 67 
 
 tt 
 
 I 1 
 
 lias 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 1 " 
 
 107 
 
 tt 
 
 The mover of the last resolution informed you of his having heard of a Kulin being 
 the husband of 107 wives ; and the list I have placed before you shows that such a 
 Kulin is really in existence. 
 
 "Among the bigamists and polygamists the following deserve special notice: a 
 boy of twelve years has two wives ; a boy of fifteen years has four wives ; three 
 boys of fifteen years have two wives each ; one boy of sixteen years has three wives ; 
 one boy of sixteen years has seven wives ; two young men twenty years old have 
 eight wives each ; one young man of twenty-two has seventeen wives ; one of thirty- 
 two has twenty wives, and one of thirty-seven has thirty-five wives. Educated 
 young men and men of position also figure in this list." 
 
 1 " The Women of India," p. 66. 
 
 2 " Report of the Bombay Conference, 1892," vol. i., pp. 8«>-83. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 123 
 
 wa5 carried to such an extreme that the widow was until recently bound 
 to self-destruction at the death of her husband, in order that she might 
 continue to be his wife and engage in his service in the life beyond. 
 The prohibition of remarriage was lifted by what is known in British 
 Indian legislation as the " Widow Marriage Act," passed by Lord Can- 
 ning in 1856. The force of this act is simply that it removes the legal 
 obstacles to remarriage on the part of the widow, if it is desired, but 
 at the same time it requires her, in case of remarriage, to forfeit all 
 property which she has inherited from her husband. This law has been 
 modified by a special enactment in the case of native Christians and the 
 theistic reformed sects of India, but it is still in force so far as the en- 
 tire Hindu population is concerned. It is in reality, however, a dead 
 letter, as the Hindus regard it with abhorrence, and have not mitigated 
 in the least their strenuous opposition to the remarriage of a widow. 
 Thirty years after its enactment only about sixty remarriages are re- 
 ported in all India.i It was a generation or more in advance of native 
 opinion, which, however, at the present time is beginning to agitate for 
 larger liberty in this matter. The law, being simply permissive in its 
 character, legahzes without urging or facihtating the act of remarriage. 
 It remains for native public opinion to relax its tyrannical stringency 
 and yield itself to the urgent call for a more enlightened liberty. As 
 the case stands now, the loss of property on the part of the widow is 
 not the only penalty attending her remarriage ; both she and her husband 
 are ruled out of caste, and must suffer social ostracism in its most in- 
 tense and virulent form. 
 
 The condition of the Hindu widow is, almost without exception, alam- 
 entable one. It has been fully described in books referring to the social 
 and religious state of India.^ The chief features 
 which make her fate a hard one, especially if she is The sorrows of Indian 
 widowed in childhood, are that she is immediately widowhood. 
 
 obUged to shave her head, is deprived forcibly of her 
 jewels and ordinary clothing, and made to wear for the rest of her life 
 a distinctive garb, which is a badge of humiliation. She is allowed to 
 eat only once in the twenty-four hours, and every two weeks is required 
 to observe a strict fast, omitting even the one meal. It has been 
 decreed, however, by the highest religious court of Hinduism that if, 
 acting on medical advice, the widow on these fast-days should drink a 
 little water the offense should be condoned.^ Her person is forever 
 
 1 "The Women of India," p. 127. 
 
 8 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 364-375 ; " The Women of India," pp. 
 I17-122. s Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 364. 
 
124 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 held in contempt, and even her touch may be considered pollution. 
 Her widowhood is regarded as an affliction brought upon her in pun- 
 ishment for heinous sin in a previous state of existence. If it come 
 upon her in childhood she must grow to years of maturity with the 
 painful consciousness of her isolation and unhappy ostracism shadow- 
 ing the early years of her life. She is forever an object of suspicion, 
 and is looked upon as capable of all evil. She is the victim of special 
 temptations, and is often driven to a life of shame through sheer self- 
 loathing and despair. 
 
 It should not be understood that all widows are invariably treated 
 with the same degree of severity and contempt throughout India. The 
 treatment shown them varies in different castes, and even in different 
 families. It may, of course, be mitigated by the personal kindness and 
 consideration of their immediate circle, and it may be, on the other 
 hand, intensified by fanaticism. In the Punjab, and especially in Ben- 
 gal, the worst features of the widow's sad lot are prevalent. In other 
 parts of India she may be treated with far less personal contumely, but 
 the main features of isolation, suspicion, distinctive dress, cruel restric- 
 tions, and prohibition of remarriage prevail everywhere. According 
 to the census of 1881, there were in India at that time 20,938,626 
 widows. The census of 1891 reports 22,657,429, but as this reportwas 
 given with reference only to 262,300,000 out of a total population of 
 287,223,431, if the same proportion holds, the total number in all India 
 would not be less than 25,000,000. Nearly every fifth woman in India 
 is a widow. This large percentage may be traced directly to the custom 
 of early marriages and the stringent prohibition of remarriage.^ 
 
 The same shadow rests upon the widow in China and Korea, al- 
 though the exactions of custom are by no means so inexorable as in 
 India. If, however, she should remarry she loses her social position 
 and is regarded as guilty of an unnatural and immodest act. 
 
 In connection with the subject of widowhood and its enforced hard- 
 ships, mention may be made of the now happily extinct custom of sati, 
 
 1 " The distribution according to age of the total 22,657,429 widows is as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 From o to 4 years of age 13,878 From 35 to 49 years of age 6,996,592 
 
 From 5 to 9 " " 64,040 From 50 and over 11,224,933 
 
 From 10 to 14" " 174,532 Age not returned 22,906 
 
 From 15 to 34 " " 4,160,548 
 
 " Four hundred and eighty out of 10,000 males are widowed, against I76ooutot 
 every 10,000 females. 
 
 " For 8 widows in Europe, per population, there are 18 in lodia." — Indians Women, 
 January, 1895, p. 4a. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAH WORLD 126 
 
 or widow-buming. The usual form of the word in English is " suttee," 
 but it is more correctly written sati, from a root signifying " good " or 
 "pure," the significance of the word being that self- 
 destruction on the part of the widow is a preemi- 
 
 .1-1 i rr-i 1 Ml . The abolition of »o<». 
 
 nently virtuous act. The homble custom was un- 
 known among the early Aryans, nor is it inculcated 
 in the Vedas. It is supposed that the Hindus adopted it from the 
 Scythian tribes, who were accustomed to immolate "concubine and 
 horse and slave on the tomb of the dead lord." Possibly the custom 
 may have commended itself to the Hindus as one eminently fitting and 
 in harmony with their ideas of what is becoming in a widow. At all 
 events, it became prevalent to a fearful extent, and the relatives of the 
 unhappy widow may have been all the more eager to insist upon it so 
 that they might obtain her inheritance and be altogether relieved of the 
 burden of supporting her. She was assured that untold happiness would 
 follow this supreme sacrifice, and even those who aided in the act of 
 burning would obtain for themselves extravagant merit. In numberless 
 instances the unhappy victim would shrink from her terrible fate, and 
 would be forced to it in a way which made it a most abominable species 
 of murder.i In the year 1817 it was found that, on an average, two 
 widows were burned alive in Bengal every day. In some cases death 
 was by burial while alive instead of by burning. This most awful crime 
 was abohshed by the British Government in 1829 by the decisive action 
 of Lord William Bentinck. The Hindus objected most vigorously to the 
 regulation placing the practice of sati among the crimes punishable by 
 law. They presented memorials to the Government, in which they justi- 
 fied the act of immolation as a sacred duty and exalted privilege, and 
 claimed that the action of the authorities was an unwarranted interfer- 
 ence with the religious customs of India. The appeal was transmitted to 
 the Privy Council in England, but Lord Bentinck's action, in the matter 
 was sustained. The prohibition applied only to British territory, but 
 the Government has also used its best influence in restricting the custom 
 in Native States, and at the present time, although rare instances are 
 still reported, it has been practically suppressed everywhere. The agi- 
 tation for its abolition was begun under missionary auspices by Dr. 
 Carey in 1801. 
 
 5. Defective Family Training.— The delicate and responsible 
 offices of parental training, although everywhere in the non-Christian 
 1 " The Women of India," p. 122. 
 
126 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 world more or less under the guiding instincts of natural feeling, are yet, 
 through ignorance, passion, and thoughtlessness, sadly ineffective as 
 a helpful discipline to the young. Family training can rise no higher 
 in its temper and wisdom than the family character. Its aspirations 
 may be the best, and its aims the highest that can be expected under the 
 circumstances, yet they are not likely to transcend the family environ- 
 ment, except as Christian teachings give an uplifting impulse to parental 
 desires. 
 
 The sketch of Japanese child life given by Miss Bacon, in her chap- 
 ter on childhood in "Japanese Girls and Women," is a pleasing picture, 
 and, owing to the kindness with which children 
 The training of children are treated, Japan has been called a "paradise 
 in Japan and chi'na. of babies." So far as gentleness and natural affec- 
 tion are concerned, the elements of happy family 
 life seem to be present in Japan. The danger is rather in the lack 
 of a wise self-restraint on the part of parents, modifying the tendency 
 to an undue laxity which in the end may work injury. The absence 
 of a high moral purpose and a deep sense of parental responsibihty can 
 hardly be atoned for by mere fondness. Later on in the life of a Jap- 
 anese child comes the shadow of parental absolutism, which in many 
 instances is guilty of inflicting grave wrongs upon confiding and obedi- 
 ent children, especially the daughters. 
 
 In China there is a somewhat severe and elaborate ethical code of 
 training which, if put into practice with wisdom and kindliness, is by 
 no means void of good results. Its influence, however, is largely 
 neutralized by the force of example and the power of the imitative in- 
 stinct in the young. The " Nu Erh Ching; or. Classic for Girls " has 
 been translated into English by Professor Headland, of Peking,* and is 
 full of sage advice and excellent counsel. Moral maxims and conven- 
 tional poUteness, however, may be insisted upon with much carefulness ; 
 yet if a child's mind " is filled with ill-natured gossip, low jests, filthy 
 sayings, and a thousand slavish superstitions " the result is sure to be 
 disastrous. Even though the letter of the discipline may be free from 
 serious defect, yet the fact that it is ignored in thousands of families, 
 and in its place is substituted the foolish and idolizing weakness of fond 
 parents, interspersed with bursts of furious brutality, quite transforms 
 the ideal Chinese home into a school of selfishness, conceit, and dis- 
 obedience.2 The ordinary training of Chinese children is characterized 
 by grave moral lapses, and sometimes by shocking cruelty. Punishment 
 
 1 The Chinese Recorder, December, 1895, p. 554. 
 
 2 WiUiams, " A New thing," p. 27. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 127 
 
 is frequently brutal and even criminal.^ Parental care is in many cases 
 neglected. In fact, the children are sometimes cast off and turned 
 loose in the world under heartless conditions which insure either death, 
 slavery, or shame.^ Child slavery is one of the reproaches of Chinese 
 society.* 
 
 In India and Burma, and, in fact, throughout all Asiatic countries, 
 the utter neglect of family training seems to be the feature most to be 
 noted in this connection. The children, except 
 those of the higher classes, are left to their own 
 devices to grow up under the influence of their 
 tainted environment. Where the climate will allow 
 they are unclothed, until natural modesty ceases to exist, and are usually 
 unwashed, unkempt, and covered with filth, flies, and vermin. In India 
 " there exists a superstition according to which it is unlucky to wash 
 children until they reach a certain age."* The "joint family system," 
 as known in India, is a dangerous one to family peace, and attended 
 with practical disadvantages which are objectionable from many points 
 of view. Its effect upon children is to concentrate the power of evil 
 example and bring them into contact with every aspect of domestic in- 
 feUcity.5 A sad aspect of the matter is the prurient precocity of chil- 
 dren, who begin their vile language with their infant prattle and grow 
 old in pollution while yet young in years.^ The average Indian mother 
 
 1 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 213 ; Turner, " Kwang Tung," p. 154; 
 " Child Life in China," The Sunday-School Times, April 6, 1895. 
 
 2 Henry, " The Cross and the Dragon," pp. 309-311 ; Turner, " Kwang Tung," 
 p. 154. 
 
 3 Woman's Work in the Far East, May, 1896, pp. 15-18; Ball, "Things 
 Chinese," p. 404; Douglas, " Society in China," pp. 347-349. 
 
 * Monier- Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," p. 580. 
 
 5 " The redeeming virtues of the family system have been supplanted by vices 
 of abnormal degree and magnitude. Where sincere sympathy was, stolid indifference 
 now exists. Jealousy and hatred have usurped the place of harmony. Discordancy 
 rides triumphant. Deceit and spoliation have seized those who were heretofore the 
 trustees of our honor and property. A sense of distrust has seized each member 
 against every member. Family feuds, litigation, and waste of resources are now 
 every-day occurrences. So that the Hindu family has changed from a convenient 
 social unit into an incoherent and cumbrous mass. Say what our countrymen may, 
 our domestic relations are undergoing a revolution appalling to contemplate. It is 
 not confined to this or that sect, this caste or that caste, but [pertains] to almost every 
 household. Brahman or Sudra. It is only families still in their archaic state which 
 form the exception. In them the patriarch's rule is still dominant."— MuUick, 
 " Essays on the Hindu Family in Bengal," quoted in " The Women of India," p. 86. 
 
 * " Even under the most favorable conditions of Indian life, how full of misery is 
 the child's life ! The obscene speech of Indian homes is one of its darkest features. It 
 
128 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 seems to be all unconscious of the fact that she has anything to do in 
 forming the character of her children.^ 
 
 In Mohammedan lands the same physical and moral neglect prevails, 
 and the young grow up under the unwholesome culture of surrounding 
 influences. Parental petting alternates with parental passion in the 
 daily treatment of children. 
 
 In Africa family life is not very far above the plane of mere animal- 
 ism, modified, of course, by human instincts ; yet there is really no fam- 
 ily training. Children run wild and grow up with untamed and grossly 
 tainted natures.^ The mission school is the best gift of heaven to 
 African children, and under its auspices the long, slow process of mak- 
 ing over those wild natures has commenced. 
 
 A word should be said in this connection concerning the abuse of 
 parental authority in Eastern lands— not a new or strange thing in 
 heathenism, as we may read in classical history.^ In China it is an- 
 swerable for much brutality and for the sale of children into slavery, 
 while in Japan it often seals the doom of a daughter to a life of misery.* 
 In all the realms of savagery it suggests a dread possibiUty in the 
 case of millions of little ones who may at any time become the victims 
 of a sudden whim or a loathsome purpose on the part of those who 
 are the irresponsible masters of young lives. 
 
 6. Infanticide.— That the exposure of children in such a way as 
 to insure their destruction was common in classical heathenism is too 
 well known to require more than a passing notice.^ It is perhaps a less 
 
 is indeed a ;3(i6of in this connexion to speak of the misery of the uncleanliness of 
 Indian children. Yet how can it be but inevitable when ' Indian mothers trust 
 largely to superstitious ceremonies to keep their children well, while they neglect 
 sanitary arrangements ' ? Worse than all is the woe o Indian childhood which befalls 
 the opening mind when, led by their mothers to the Indian temple, their eyes are 
 met with sights, their ears assailed by songs, of such loathsome import that inno- 
 cency may not sustain the strain, and the child mind perishes in that awful hour." 
 — " Missions or Science, the Maker of India's Homes? " The Church Missionary 
 Intelligencer, November, 1893, p. 807. 
 
 1 Thoburn, " India and Malaysia," p. 365. 
 
 8 " Infants and children are usually grievously mismanaged, and the mortality 
 among them is enormous." — Rev. G. M. Lawson (U. M. C. A.), Zanzibar. 
 
 8 Storrs, " The Divine Origin of Christianity," pp. 138-140; Ingram, " History 
 of Slavery," pp. 16, 28. 
 
 * The Japan Evangelist, February, 1896, p. 135. 
 
 B Brace, " Gesta Christi," pp. 72-83 ; Storrs. " The Divine Origin of Christian- 
 ity," pp. 138-141. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 129 
 
 familiar fact that this inhuman crime prevailed among the pagan bar- 
 barians of Central and Northern Europe as late as the thirteenth 
 century.i 
 
 The heathenism of to-day, even in the centres of its most advanced 
 civilization, is still red-handed with the traces of infanticide. Japan is 
 in pleasing and humane contrast with her more 
 barbarous neighbors, the Chinese, as regards this chua murder not 
 dark and cruel crime. That the custom, although uncommon in china, 
 often practised in secret, prevails in China cannot 
 be doubted. The united testimony of those who have had ample op- 
 portunities to know the facts presents a body of evidence which is irre- 
 sistibly strong, although the custom is confined almost exclusively to the 
 destruction of girls, unless in case of deformed or weakly infants. It 
 is more prevalent in Central and Southern China, and is comparatively 
 rare in the north. It is said that poverty and the desire to be free from 
 the burden of caring for girls are the chief causes of its prevalence.* 
 The spirit which seems to reign in the hearts of Chinese mothers is illus- 
 trated by a conversation which Miss Fielde reports in " A Comer of 
 Cathay" (p. 72). A pagan Chinese woman, discoursing upon the 
 subject of daughters, remarked, " A daughter is a troublesome and ex- 
 pensive thing anyway. Not only has she to be fed, but there is all the 
 trouble of binding her feet, and of getting her betrothed, and of making 
 up her wedding garments ; and even after she is married off she must 
 have presents made to her when she has children. Really, it is no won- 
 der that so many baby girls are slain at their birth! " While the diffi- 
 culty of obtaining accurate data is recognized by all, and also the fact 
 that statements which apply to certain sections of the vast empire are 
 not representative of the true status in other parts, yet the prevalence 
 of infanticide to a frightful extent is beyond question.^ The author of 
 "Things Chinese" (p. 233) estimates on the basis of special inquiries 
 that in the province of Fuhkien " an average of forty per cent, of the 
 girls were thus murdered." Rev. C. Hartwell, in a paper read at the 
 Shanghai Conference of 1877 (" Report,"p. 387), estimates that at Foo- 
 chow " from thirty to seventy per cent, of the female infants have been 
 destroyed." If the act of destruction is not actually committed, another 
 
 1 Lawrence, " Modern Missions in the East," p. 15. 
 
 2 Douglas, "Society in China," pp. 351-356; Williams, "The Middle King- 
 dom," vol. ii., pp. 239-243. 
 
 3 Norman, "The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," pp. 289-291; Smith, 
 " Chinese Characteristics," p. 179; Fielde, " Pagoda Shadows," chap. iii. ; Moule, 
 " New China and Old," p. 179. 
 
130 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 method of accomplishing the result is to leave the mfant in some ex- 
 posed place, where it is either destroyed by animals or starved. It may 
 be cast into the living tomb of a baby tower, or placed in a basket or 
 shelter provided for the purpose, from whence some one may take it to 
 sell into slavery or to adopt if so disposed. In the latter case the mo- 
 tive may be evil and the- infant's future may be one of hopeless shame, 
 Dr, W. A. P. Martin, a lifelong resident of China, writes in The Chinese 
 Recorder, October, 1894, as follows : " Of the prevalence of infanticide 
 in China there is unhappily no room for doubt. The question is set at 
 rest by the testimony of the people themselves. Among their moral 
 tracts dissuading from vice and crime a conspicuous place is filled by 
 a class called ' Dissuasives from Drowning Daughters,' Official proc- 
 lamations may often be seen posted on gates and walls forbidding the 
 practice," Other veteran missionaries, as Dr. Talmage, of Amoy, have 
 reported the results of careful inquiry and observation to the same 
 effect.! Dr. Abeel, whose diary is quoted in the " Life of Talmage " 
 (p. 69), and whose observation dates back about fifty years from the 
 present time, gave it as his verdict, after repeated investigation in the 
 vicinity of Amoy, that " the number destroyed varies exceedingly in 
 different places, the extremes extending from seventy and eighty per 
 cent, to ten per cent., and the average proportion destroyed in all these 
 places amounting to nearly four tenths, or exactly thirty-nine per cent. 
 In seventeen of these forty towns and villages [visited] my informants 
 declare that one half or more are deprived of existence at birth." 
 " When I reached here thirty-two years ago," writes Rev. J. Macgowan 
 (L. M. S.), of Amoy, China, " there was a pond in the centre of the 
 town known as the ' Babies' Pond.' This was the place where Uttle 
 ones were thrown by their mothers. There were always several bodies 
 of infants floating on its green, slimy waters, and the passers-by looked 
 on without any surprise." The influence of Christianity in Amoy has 
 banished this scene. "As the Church grew," he writes, "the truth 
 spread, and street preachers pointed to this pond as an evidence of the 
 heartlessness of idolatry that tolerated such wickedness, and the people 
 became ashamed. Foundling Institutions were established, which are 
 carried on to-day and which now have fully two thousand children in 
 connection with them. To-day thousands of women are alive who, but 
 for Christianity, would have been put to death. The pond has long ago 
 dried up."' While, of course, no statement can be made which is other 
 
 * Fagg," Forty Years in South China: Life of John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.," 
 pp. 66-70; Graves, " Forty Years in China," p. 89, 
 
 2 " Infanticide is practised in Cheh-kiang Province. One of our native Christians 
 
A Children's Refuge in Singapore. 
 
 Two Groups of Children in Mary C. Nind Deaconesses' Home and Orplianage. 
 (M. E. M. S.) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 131 
 
 than an estimate, yet it seems beyond question that tens of thousands 
 (we have seen it named as high as two hundred thousand) of infant 
 girls are annually sacrificed in China. The custom is practised also in 
 Formosa, as Dr. MacKay reports in " From Far Formosa " (p. 298). 
 The testimony concerning the prevalence of infanticide in India be- 
 fore the advent of British rule is hardly less abundant than in China. 
 It may be drawn largely from Indian sources. In 
 a volume on " Medical Jurisprudence," quoted by infamuide among 
 Wilkins, it is stated that " the murder of female *•>« Hindus, 
 
 children, whether by the direct employment of 
 homicidal means or by the more inhuman and not less certain measures 
 of exposure to privation and neglect, has for ages been the chief and 
 most characteristic crime of six sevenths of the inhabitants of British 
 India." J Syed A. M. Shah states, in an article on " Hindu Women in 
 India," that, " among Rajputs, if the child were a girl the poor little 
 creature used often to be killed by her cruel parents, who looked upon 
 her birth as a direct ciurse from heaven." ^ In a lecture on " Kathiawar," 
 deUvered by Mr. M. A. Turkhud before the National Indian Associa- 
 tion, the lecturer, in speaking of the Jadejas, remarked : " This tribe 
 is noted for the practice of female infanticide. Whenever a child was 
 bom, if it was a girl it was immediately killed. How the practice origi- 
 nated is not exactly known, but it was probably due to the ambition 
 among Rajputs to marry their daughters into families higher than 
 their own, and this always involved a ruinous expenditure in dowries. 
 This practice was not confined to the Jadejas alone, but it prevailed 
 among the Sumras and Jethavas also." The lecturer quoted, also, a 
 paragraph from the writings of Colonel Watson upon the same theme. 
 Referring to the method employed in the execution of the crime, the 
 words reported are as follows : " It is not necessary to describe the 
 mode of kUUng the unfortunate children. There were several methods. 
 It is not difiicult to kill a new-born child. ' What labor is there in 
 
 confessed to me that before she became a Christian she had five daughters, and had 
 drowned them all, simply because she could not afford to bring them up. Our 
 churches are practically anti-infanticide societies.''— S. P. Barchet, M.D. (A. B. 
 M. U.), Kinhwa, China. 
 
 " Infanticide is practised extensively in some parts of China, but is not so com- 
 mon in North China. Here it is chiefly confined to the very poor, to sickly children 
 and illegitimate children. But there is no sentiment against it as wrong. There 
 is no hope of preventing it, except by the higher moral tone Christianity imparts. "— 
 Mrs. C. W. Mateer (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow, China. 
 
 1 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 431. 
 
 2 The Indian Magazine and Review, April, 1894, p. 2I2< 
 
132 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 crashing a flower ? ' said a Jadeja chief, on being asked what means 
 were employed. The crime was formerly so universal that directly a 
 female child was born it was killed by the women of the house, unless 
 the father had given express orders beforehand that it should be reared, 
 and such an order was rarely given. The father never saw the infant 
 himself ; he always pretended to be unconscious of the whole affair, and 
 if any one ventured to ask him ... the answer was, ' Nothing.' The 
 event was always passed over in silence, and even when a girl's life was 
 spared there was no rejoicing."' When Kathiawar came under British 
 rule, the Jains, whose chief religious tenet is total abstinence from tak- 
 ing all animal life, expressly stipulated that no cattle should be killed 
 for the use of English troops ; yet this was in face of the fact that female 
 infanticide had been practised for ages without the slightest protest. The 
 sacrifice of children in the payment of vows to Indian deities has been 
 " known for untold generations," and not until British legislation had 
 largely abolished the custom were there any signs of its cessation. 
 
 The question as to the extent of infanticide in India at the present 
 time is more difficult to determine, as under the ban of British law it 
 
 is carried on more secretly. In fifteen years, how- 
 Has it been entirely ever, there have been officially reported twelve 
 checked in India? thousand five hundred and forty-two cases, and 
 
 this number represents only a small proportion of 
 the total. The Indian Social Reformer for August 3, 1895, contains the 
 following statement : " Infanticide seems to be largely on the increase 
 in the Madras Presidency. Hardly a week passes without our reading 
 in the papers of painful instances in which new-born babies are either 
 killed or deserted. The ' Sasilekha ' rightly attributes this sad state of 
 affairs to the peculiarly rigid and stupid marriage customs of the 
 country, and exhorts all true patriots to do what they can to modify 
 these customs." In a recent issue of The Bombay Gazette is the 
 statement that "female infanticide continues prevalent in Northern 
 India, and the subject comes under review by the Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the Punjab in a resolution on the Sanitary Commissioner's report. 
 'The unenviable notoriety enjoyed by the districts of Jullundur, 
 Amritsar, and Ludhiana,' he remarks, ' by reason of their abnormally 
 high death-rates of female infants, is again brought to notice.' " A 
 chapter on infanticide in " Women of the Orient " gives some signifi- 
 cant statements from official sources with reference to the state of 
 affairs in India in 1870, and the author comes to this conclusion : "As 
 the result of careful inquiry while in India, I am morally certain that, 
 1 The Indian Magazine and Review, April, 1896, p. 171. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 133 
 
 at the very lowest estimate admissible, fully one third of the girls born 
 among the natives of that country are still secretly murdered." ^ 
 
 The British Government has waged strenuous warfare against in- 
 fanticide in India, but, owing to the extreme difficulty of discovery and 
 the impossibility of fixing the guilt, it has not been as successful in the 
 matter of infant murder as in the case of other inhuman practices. The 
 crime has been prohibited by British law since 1802, and this prescrip- 
 tive legislation has gradually been extended to all parts of India, and 
 more recently it has been enacted that in all proclaimed villages the 
 proportion of girls born should bear a certain ratio to the boys, as it has 
 been clearly indicated by experience that the normal proportion is about 
 equal. A strict surveillance by the proper officials throughout Northern 
 and Western India has secured at the present time a ratio of four girls 
 to six boys, which is a decided improvement upon the past. The 
 secrecy of the zenana renders it almost impossible to prove a case of 
 infanticide, and, even though the act of murder should not be violently 
 committed, the object can be attained with almost equal certainty by 
 neglect. In the last census the relative number of girls to one hundred 
 boys shows a marked improvement over past records. The average for 
 all India is 92 girls to every 100 boys. The lowest recorded ratio is 
 69t^o% iJi Quetta, British Baluchistan, and the next is 83-1^ in Sindh, 
 while in Rajputana, once so noted for the prevalence of infanticide, it 
 has risen to 87^0%- It is worthy of note that in Upper Burma, where 
 woman occupies a position of exceptional honor, the recorded ratio is 
 102^^ girls to every 100 boys. It is to be hoped that with the pro- 
 gress of Christianity and the abolition of the absurd extravagances of 
 narriage the natural heart of India will revolt from the heinousness of 
 this crime, and infanticide will disappear forever. 
 
 In the Pacific Islands infanticide has prevailed to a frightful extent 
 under circumstances of exceptional heartlessness and cruelty. " The 
 early missionaries have testified that not less than two thirds of the chil- 
 dren were put to death. Especially were female children killed. ' Why 
 should the girl live?' they [the natives] would say. 'She cannot poise 
 the spear, she cannot wield the club.' A mother would often strangle 
 her own child, with one hand holding the nostrils and the other hold- 
 ing the mouth, and then herself dig the grave and bury the child." ^ 
 The above statement was made concerning the Fiji Islands, but it is 
 substantially true with reference to almost the entire island world.^ 
 
 1 Houghton, " Women of the Orient," p. 71. 
 
 ' Alexander, " The Islands of the Pacific," p. 394. 
 
 s Michelsen, "Cannibals Won for Christ," pp. 133, 154; Gill, "Life in the 
 
134 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PKOGKJ:.iii, 
 
 The Samoan Group seems to have presented a remarkable exception to 
 other sections of Polynesia, as infanticide is said never to have pre- 
 vailed there.i 
 
 As we enter the " habitations of cruelty " in the Dark Continent, the 
 crime of infanticide is found in ghastly proportions. Among certain 
 savage races the advent of twins seems to excite 
 The doom of twins every instinct of fear and brutality. In an address 
 in Africa. at a Ladies' Meeting of the Church Missionary 
 
 Society, Mrs. Hill, the wife of the lamented Bishop 
 Hill, of Western Equatorial Africa, made the following statement: 
 " The birth of twins is considered a great curse, and the woman that 
 has twins is disgraced for life afterwards, and she is compelled to throw 
 the twins into the wood, where they are left to die. In a town five miles 
 distant from where we were there are five hundred infants annually sac- 
 rificed in these two ways: they are murdered by hundreds, and left 
 to die in the way which I have stated." ^ Dr. Laws (U. P. C. S.), in 
 writing from Old Calabar, a neighboring mission to Bishop Hill's, says, 
 " It is almost impossible for any one at home to imagine the horror 
 with which the birth of twins is regarded by the natives, and especially 
 by the native women." In the same connection he refers to the "de- 
 struction of twins " as one of the great obstacles to the progress of 
 Christianity in Old Calabar, inasmuch as the missionaries insist upon an 
 entire change of custom as essential to the profession of Christianity.' 
 The missionary literature of other societies at work in Africa, especially 
 that of the Universities' Mission and the London Missionary Society, 
 yields similar statements with reference to " the fearful amount of child 
 murder " prevailing in Africa. In some instances the heinous guilt of 
 the little victim is declared to be that it " cut its upper teeth first." In 
 other instances, strange to say, its fatal offense is reported as " cutting a 
 lower tooth before the upper ones." In both cases the father was the 
 executioner, fearing death himself if the infant lived. If a child should 
 cut a tooth before birth its doom is sealed, according to what is known 
 as the custom of the " vigego." * 
 
 Southern Isles,", p. ^13; Alexander, "The Islands of the Pacific," pp. 28, 77, 159, 
 268, 413. 
 
 1 " Infanticide, wholly unknown in Sampa,.prevfiiled,throughout the Tokelau and 
 Ellice groups."— Rev. J. E. Newell (I^. M. S.), Malua Institution, Samoa. 
 
 * The Church Missionary Intelligencer, June, 1893, p. 437. Cf. also Faulkner, 
 "Joseph Sidney Hill," p. 144. 
 
 ' The Missionary Record, December, 1893, p. 354. 
 
 < Central Africa, January, 1894, p. 8; Ibid., May, 1895, p. 68; T}ie MMsimm 
 Record, January, 1893, p. 23. 
 
ChiUngali Girls. Miss Mills and her Boys. Chitangali Boys, 
 
 What Missions Do for the Children in Africa (U.m.c.a,) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 135 
 
 That infanticide has been only too well known among the Indians 
 of North and South America is the testimony of those who are familiar 
 with their history. To the credit of the Moham- 
 medans it may be said that, except in the case of '"'^*""='<'e ""t common 
 
 •11 -^^ ^ 1 '1 1 > <• .... among Mohammedans. 
 
 illegitimate children, infanticide is not now prac- 
 tised, being prohibited in the Koran.i 
 
 III. -THE TRIBAL GROUP 
 
 (Evils which pertain to intertribal relationships and find their origin in the cruel 
 passions of savage life) 
 
 Turning now from the consideration of those evils which may be 
 differentiated as individual or domestic in their origin and character, 
 we come to a group whose genesis is tribal, pertaining rather to life in 
 the larger relationships of clan, tribe, or race. As will be noted, this 
 is a classification which is far from precise or exclusive, yet it is perhaps 
 as definite as we can hope to attain. 
 
 1. The Traffic in Human Flesh.— The slave-traffic and its twin 
 evil, slavery, have shadowed human history from the earliest times. 
 Barbarous pride, inhuman greed, and the fortunes 
 of war among savage races have proved a sufficient The historical genesis 
 stimulus to this cruel wrong. A compact survey of the slave-trade, 
 of the status of slavery in Greece and Rome, and 
 of the enormous extent of the slave-traffic in those great empires, will 
 be found in the excellent little volume of Dr. Ingram,^ who gives also, 
 in chapter vi., a brief history of the rise of the African slave-trade in the 
 
 1 Cf. Sale's Preliminary Discourse, in Wherry's " Commentary on the Quran," 
 sec. v., pp. 202-204. The custom of burying alive female infants as soon as they were 
 born was a common one among the Arabs in the time of Mohammed. The prohibi- 
 tion of the Koran is explicit: " Kill not your children, for fear of being brought to 
 want; we will provide for them and for you; verily, the killing them is a great sin." 
 "Surat al Bani Israil " (" The Children of Israel "), entitled also " The Night Jour- 
 ney," verse 33. Cf. also " Surat al Anam" (" Cattle"), verses 137, 151 ; " Surat 
 al Nahl" ("The Bee"), verses 60, 61; and " Surat al Takwir" ("The Folding 
 Up "), verse 8. Dr. Wherry calls attention to the fact that the motive for the act 
 among the Arabs was the same which influences the Hindus. " Commentary," vol. 
 i., p. 203. 
 
 2 Ingram, " A History of Slavery and Serfdom," chaps, ii., iii. Cf. Storrs, 
 " The Divine Origin of Christianity," pp. 155-157, 479-482, 
 
136 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 latter half of the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese, under Prince 
 Henry the Navigator, made theu" first venture in "black men and gold- 
 dust." The awful scourge of colonial slavery and its monstrous crime 
 of slave hunting and transportation followed with an amazingly rapid 
 development.! Its history, covering a period of over two hundred 
 and fifty years, presents perhaps the most colossal wrong that man has 
 ever inflicted upon man, unless we except the age-long records of war. 
 Commerce in slaves was common in Russia until, in the reign of Alex- 
 ander II., it came to an end with the abolition of serfdom in 1861. 
 By this memorable act of emancipation, in which were included the serfs 
 of the State, of the imperial appanages, and of the individual proprietors 
 as well, over forty million bondmen were set free. Mohammedanism 
 has been throughout its history responsible for the slave-hunt and the 
 slave-market as necessary accompaniments to the slavery it recognizes 
 and sanctions.' The African slave-trade in modern times has been 
 maintained to a large extent for the supply of Moslem markets in Arabia, 
 Persia, Turkey, Egypt, Tripoli, and Morocco. 
 
 Livingstone was the instrument used by Providence to awaken civ- 
 ilized nations to the enormity of this great evil and its awful cruelties. 
 He pronounced it, in words which have lived and 
 The main avenues of bumed in the conscience of Christendom, to be 
 """in" "Am" '* ' " the open sore of the world." Since the abolition 
 of the external traffic on the West Coast, which 
 drained the deep recesses of the Continent for the supply of the colo- 
 nial markets,' there still lingers an internal trade among the native 
 tribes of West Africa. The main avenues of the traffic, however, have 
 branched out in three directions from East Central Africa and the 
 Soudan as centres, and along these dreary paths the tramp of the 
 
 1 Ingram, pp. 140-153. " Ibid., p. 222. 
 
 3 " Immediately after the discovery of the New World, the demand for labour in 
 its mines and plantations, of which the Western nations of Europe were rapidly tak- 
 ing possession, gave an immense stimulus to the traffic in slaves from Africa. This 
 traffic was at first promoted most actively by the Spaniards, but in 1562 Sir John 
 Hawkins engaged English ships in it, and thereafter it became a recognized depart- 
 ment of English commerce. At least four companies were formed in succession, each 
 of which possessed under Royal charter the sole right to traffic with Africa, but they 
 were unable to exclude other traders, and none survived for any length of time. The 
 Revolution of 1688 threw the trade open, and from this time it flourished. In the 
 year 1771 no fewer than 192 ships sailed from England for Africa (107 of these from 
 Liverpool), with provision for the transport of 47, 146 slaves. The entries show that 
 from 1700 to 1786 the number of slaves imported into Jamaica alone was 610,000, or 
 an average of 7000 a year.''— George Robson, D.D., " The Story of Our Jamaica 
 Mission," p. 12. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 137 
 
 ghastly caravans may still be heard. One of these finds its outlet from 
 the Western Soudan in a northerly direction through the burning 
 regions of the Sahara to the Mohammedan States of North Africa, espe- 
 cially Tripoli and Morocco. Another is eastward to the coast, whence 
 the slaves are conveyed to the markets in Arabia, Persia, and Turkey 
 in the north, and, until recently, to Madagascar in the south. The 
 third route is by the Nile Valley, through which a large traffic was 
 formerly carried on, but which in late years has been so carefully 
 guarded that it is not available except in instances where secrecy or 
 cunning can succeed in eluding detection.^ According to a careful 
 estimate, based upon the personal investigations of such explorers as 
 Livingstone, Gordon, Cameron, Lavigerie, and others, the annual sacri- 
 fice of lives in Africa by the slave-trade, as conducted a generation ago, 
 was not less than five hundred thousand. If we add to this the victirjis 
 transported into slavery and those exiled from their biurning villages 
 and their ruined homes, we may regard the total number of those who 
 were at that time victims to the slave-trader's violence as not less than 
 two millions annually.^ Much has been done within a quarter of a 
 century to mitigate these horrors and lessen their volume, but that the 
 slave-trade still exists to an extent hardly realized by Christendom is a 
 fact which cannot be doubted. It is to a lamentable extent a feature 
 of internal commerce between the African tribes themselves, and all 
 the efEorts to seal its outlets along the extensive unguarded coast-line 
 of East Africa have been as yet only partially successful. 
 
 In the Congo Free State energetic attempts have been made, with 
 considerable success, to break up the Arab strongholds of the traffic in 
 the northeasterly regions of the State. The action 
 of the Brussels Conference of 1889-90, which had The slave-markets of 
 
 . f , , *•>* West Coast and its 
 
 for one of its objects the suppression of the slave- Hinterland, 
 
 trade, has given a stimulus among all civilized 
 nations to aggressive and benevolent efforts for its repression. It is in 
 harmony with the agreement entered upon at that Conference that the 
 
 1 " There can be little doubt that in course of time slavery in Egypt will entirely 
 disappear, provided continual vigilance be exercised over buyers as well as over 
 dealers. Notwithstanding what has been done to check the trade, it is certain that 
 advantage is at once taken of the least relaxation in the measures heretofore adopted 
 to prevent the introduction and the sale of slaves in Egypt, to smuggle in slaves from 
 Tripoli or Bengazi, and dispose of them generally in out-of-the-way places where 
 detection is difficult."— Report of Lord Cromer on Slavery in Egypt {vide Blue 
 Book, Egypt, No. i, 1894), quoted in The Anti-Slavery Reporter, March-April, 
 1894, p. 96. 
 
 * The Anti-Slavery Reporter, July, 1894, p. 208. 
 
138 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 recent campaign upon the northern and eastern borders of the Congo 
 State was conducted. Germany, England, and France have responded 
 to the sentiment embodied in the Brussels Act, and have throttled the 
 giant evil here and there throughout their vast possessions and spheres 
 of influence in Africa ; yet the testimony of travellers who have pene- 
 trated the interior, of missionaries in various parts of the Continent, 
 and especially the recent report of Mr. Donald Mackenzie, who in 1895 
 visited the East Coast of Africa from Suakin to Zanzibar as a special 
 Commissioner of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, leave 
 no room for doubt that the slave-trade is still a grim reality in Africa. 
 Such is also the testimony of Mr. Heli Chatelain, who has resided for 
 many years in West Africa, and who has been instrumental in organiz- 
 ing the " Philafrican Liberators' League " in the United States, for the 
 purpose of establishing colonies in Africa, according to the suggestion 
 of the Brussels Act, for the protection and industrial training of liber- 
 ated slaves.! 
 
 Slave-markets for intertribal trade are scattered along the West 
 Coast.^ In Yorubaland young children are driven like sheep to be 
 sold in the shambles.' In a recent volume on Hausaland, by Charles H. 
 Robinson, M.A., startling statements are made concerning the extent 
 and cruelty of the slave-traffic in the Hausa States and throughout the 
 Western Soudan. His description of the slave-market at Kano, of 
 the .slave-raiding throughout that section of Africa, and of the sin- 
 gular custom of using slaves as currency, indicates that this region, 
 although nominally under English supervision, through the Royal Niger 
 Company, is cursed by the most abandoned and heartless species of 
 slave-raiding and slave-trading. In the market at Kano there is an 
 average of about five hundred human beings daily on sale. It appears, 
 in fact, that about every important town in the Hausa States possesses 
 a slave-market. The tribute paid by the smaller States to the larger 
 
 1 Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, No. 1, 1896, p. 70 ; " Africa 
 and the American Negro " (Addresses at Atlanta Congress on Africa), pp. 103-112. 
 
 2 The Missionary Record, January, 1895, p. 13. 
 
 s " As the day cooled again we passed through the lonely though well-cultivated 
 farms of Shobakia, Egbade, and Olipin. In the midst of them we saw a sight of 
 saddening interest. It was a company of about thirty small children, ranging from 
 seven to twelve years, who were being driven like a drove of sheep to Abeokuta. 
 They came from the interior, and the next day would be sold in the market at Abe- 
 okuta. The sight was sad, but it is all too common. The reason that children and 
 not men and women are more numerously for sale is that now men and women soon 
 run away, while children can be retained for at least a few years."— Rev. Bryan Roe, 
 in Work and Workers in the Mission Field, January, 1896, p. 14. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WOULD 139 
 
 consists usually of slaves. The Sultan of Sokoto receives a small army 
 of them every year as his annual tribute. Mr. Robinson declares that 
 " one out of every three hundred persons now living in the world is a 
 Hausa-speaking slave," and justifies the statement upon the basis of a 
 Hausa-speaking population of fifteen millions, or one per cent, of the 
 world's inhabitants. As he regards it as beyond question that at least 
 one third of these are in a state of slavery, this would result in one 
 Hausa-speaking slave to every three hundred of the world's popu- 
 lation.i 
 
 In " Fire and Sword in the Sudan," by Slatin Pasha, translated by 
 Major Wingate, is another harrowing account of slavery and the slave- 
 trade in the Soudan, chiefly in the eastern section. His descriptions of 
 the desert slave-routes, and how women and girls are treated, present 
 records of cruelty which are almost too appalling to quote.^ 
 
 Thii existence of slave-markets in Morocco, supplied by transpor- 
 tation across the Sahara from the Western Soudan and the regions of the 
 Upper Niger, is confirmed by abundant testimony.^ Mr. Henry Gur- 
 
 1 Robinson, " Hausaland," quoted in The Anti-Slavery Reporter, January-Feb- 
 ruary, 1896, pp. 62, 63. [A decree issued March 6, 1897, by Sir George Goldie, 
 abolishes slavery in all the territories of the Royal Niger Company after June 19th.] 
 
 2 Tie Anti-S/avery Reporter, J aimaxy-FehTnaxy, 1896, pp. 55-57. 
 
 s In a communication on this subject, a member of the North Africa Mission 
 says : 
 
 " Few people know the true state of affairs in Morocco ; only those who live in 
 daily touch with the common life of the people really get to understand the pernicious 
 and soul-destroying system of human flesh-traffic, as carried on in most of the public 
 markets of the interior. Having resided and travelled extensively in Morocco for 
 some seven years, I feel constrained to bear witness against the whole gang of Arab 
 slave-raiders and buyers of poor little innocent boys and girls. 
 
 " When I first settled in Morocco I met those who denied the existence of slave- 
 markets, but since that time I have seen children, some of whom were of tender 
 years, as well as very pretty young women, openly sold in the City of Morocco, and 
 in the towns along the Atlantic seaboard. It is also of very frequent occurrence to 
 see slaves sold in Fez, the capital of Northern Morocco. 
 
 " The first slave-girls that I actually saw being sold were of various ages. They 
 had just arrived from the Soudan, a distance by camel, perhaps, of forty days' jour- 
 ney. Two swarthy-looking men were in charge of them. The timid little creatures, 
 mute as touching Arabic, for they had not yet learned to speak in that tongue, were 
 pushed out by their captors from a horribly dark and noisome dungeon into which 
 they had been thrust the night before. Then, separately, or two by two, they were 
 paraded up and down before the public gaze, being stopped now and again by some 
 one of the spectators and examined exactly as the horse-dealer would examine the 
 points of a horse before buying the animal at any of our public horse-marts in Eng- 
 land. The sight was sickening. Some of the girls were terrified, others were silent 
 and sad. Every movement was watched by the captives, anxious to know their pres- 
 
140 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ney assures us that he himself visited slave-markets in Morocco City 
 and Fez, in 1894.1 Substantially the same information is given by cor- 
 respondents who accompanied the Embassy of 
 The traffic In Morocco Marshal Martinez Campos to the Court of Moroc- 
 and North Africa. ^^^ ^Jjq report the Sale of slaves within view of the 
 Imperial Palace, and by Luis Morote in a commu- 
 nication to the Spanish Anti-Slavery Society, describing the slave-markets 
 in Morocco City, after a visit to Morocco in the winter of 1893-94.^ 
 Mr. Morote speaks of the horrors of the slave-raids and the long caravan 
 journeys across the trackless desert from Timbuctoo or the far Soudan. 
 A correspondent of The New York Tribune, in a letter from Mogador, 
 quoted in Illustrated Africa, November, 1895, p. 11, declares that the 
 trade has never been so thriving and prosperous as it is at present. 
 There is also a restricted traffic through the ports of Tripoli, although 
 carried on under the cover of various disguises, since by treaty with 
 England the slave-trade in that province is illegal.^ In Egypt the 
 trade is happily under strict espionage, and at Cairo a home for freed 
 women slaves has been established, where in 1895 seventy-one were 
 received; but of these only three were found to have been imported 
 recently from outside, and the remainder were domestic slaves who had 
 been set free.* The English Government has established stations in 
 the Nile Valley for watching the traffic, and along the Red Sea coast 
 north of Suakin a camel corps is constantly patrolling to detect any 
 signs either of export or import. Unfortunately, south of Suakin the 
 Red Sea coast is practically unguarded, and the slaver still finds in 
 that section an outlet for his chattel. 
 
 The Red Sea coast from Suakin southward to the Strait of Bab-el- 
 Mandeb, and the entire coast-line around Cape Guardafui to Zanzibar, 
 
 ent fate. My own face flushed with anger as I stood helplessly by and saw those 
 sweet, dark-skinned, woolly-headed Soudanese sold into slavery. 
 
 " Our hearts have ached as we have heard from time to time from the lips of 
 slaves of the indescribable horrors of the journey across desert plains, cramped with 
 pain, parched with thirst, and suffocated in panniers, their food a handful of maize. 
 Again, we have sickened at the sight of murdered corpses, left by the wayside to 
 the vulture and the burning rays of the African sun, and we have prayed, perhaps as 
 never before, to the God of justice to stop these cruel practices. " — 77i« Anti-Slavery 
 Reporter, December, 1895, pp. 267-268. 
 
 1 Ibid., May-June, 1894, p. 181 ; January-May, 1895, p. 63. 
 
 a Ibid., July-August, 1894, p. 207. Cf. also Bonsai, '" Morocco as It Is," 
 pp. 328-334- 
 
 s The Anti-Slavery Reporter, January-February, 1894, p. 9; January-May, 1895, 
 p. 10. 
 
 * Letter of Lord Cromer, quoted in The Anti-Slavery Reporter, March-April, 
 1896, p. 118. 
 
^w ^.>-:^^^- 
 
 Rescued Slaves en a British Man-of-War. Slavery at Zanzibar— A Child Victim. 
 
 Some Victims of the East Coast Slave Trade. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 141 
 
 have hardly any effective restraint put upon the traffic. The report of 
 Mr. Donald Mackenzie, already referred to as special Commissioner of 
 the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, gives 
 an elaborate account of his visit of investiga- * "^ent «port of the 
 
 .■ • o 1 ^1 II . slave-traffic on the East 
 
 tion, m 1895, along the coast and to the opposite coaat. 
 
 shores of Arabia. The evidence that he presents 
 of a considerable traflSc is convincing. The main recruiting-ground 
 is Danakli and Aussa, and from the ports of Massowah, Mader, Eid, 
 Margebelah, and Roheitah the slaves are shipped across to the Fursan 
 Islands, which are a hotbed of slavery, and to Hodeidah and other 
 ports. In some instances they are transported around to the eastern 
 coast of Arabia. His report is strange reading for the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and gives some revolting details of cruelty and suffering.i 
 
 The report of Mr. Mackenzie concerning the slave-traffic in Zanzibar 
 and Pemba brings a still more unwelcome surprise. The Sultanate of 
 Zanzibar has been a protectorate of Great Britain since 1890, and ac- 
 cording to treaties made in 1873, confirmed by a decree of the Sultan, 
 August 12, i8go, the slave-trade is under prohibition with severe penal- 
 ties. According to evidence gathered by Mr. Mackenzie during his 
 visit in the spring of 1895, these restrictions are practically a dead letter. 
 Out of a total population of 400,000, about 266,000 are slaves, and 
 to maintain this status of slavery an importation from the mainland of 
 at least 6000 annually is required, representing a yearly sacrifice of not 
 less than 24,000 lives. He estimates further that some 1 1,000 are annu- 
 ally shipped either from the mainland or from the islands of Zanzibar 
 and Pemba to the Arabian coast, representing a further slaughter of 
 40,000 lives, since every slave who leaves the coast is roughly calculated 
 as standing for four others who have been slain in the process of his 
 capture and transportation to the coast. Upon the basis of these facts 
 most urgent appeals are made for the total abolition by the British 
 Government of the status of slavery in Zanzibar. The British and 
 Foreign Anti-Slavery Society is in communication with the Govern- 
 ment on the subject. Bishop Tucker of Uganda has also written, em- 
 phasizing the imperative demand for some Government action which 
 will forever abolish the present scandal.^ Mr. Mackenzie also passes 
 
 1 The Anti-Slavery Reporter, December, 1895, pp. 212-220. 
 
 2 " May I be allowed to express the anxiety of many out here with respect to any 
 possible postponement of the abolition of slavery within the limits of the Zanzibar 
 protectorates? Very clever schemes have been sketched for the gradual abolition of 
 the hateful ' institution.' So clever, indeed, and plausible are these schemes that I 
 am somewhat fearful lest principle should be drowned in the sea of plausibility. 
 Stress is laid upon the expense that would be incurred in compensating the slave 
 
142 CMklSTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 severe strictures upon the system of securing porters for trips into 
 the interior. He regards them as in reality slaves, who are owned by 
 masters in Zanzibar, and who hand over to their owners one half of 
 their earnings. The mortality among these caravans of porters he esti- 
 mates as high as thirty per cent., and his account of the system indicates 
 that it should be under more eflEective regulations.^ A confirmation of 
 Mr. Mackenzie's statements about exportation to Arabia is found in an 
 extract from a letter of the Rev. P. J. Zwemer, of the Arabian Mission, 
 dated Muscat, October 9, 1 895. He says : " A large number of Negroes 
 are still imported sub rosa from Africa. Although slave-importation as 
 a trade is no longer carried on, yet the method of supplying the Arab 
 with free Negro labor is very simple. Africa is the source of supply, 
 and transportation is easily effected under the tricolor (French), which 
 defies British inspection." Mr. Mackenzie also visited the German ter- 
 ritory in East Africa south of Zanzibar, and reports the existence of an 
 enormous slave-traffic from the interior of the Continent into German 
 East Africa, but almost an entire prohibition of any export through the 
 ports. His account of cruelties to the natives under German rule is 
 hardly credible, yet it is fully confirmed by Miss Balfour in her recent 
 book, " Twelve Hundred Miles in a Waggon," in an account of her visit 
 to Dar-es-Salaam.* 
 
 owners were immediate abolition proclaimed. Are we, may I ask, to weigh expense 
 against principle? To my dull comprehension the question seems to be simply one 
 of right or wrong. If it be wrong, then no question of ;^30,ooo a year should be 
 allowed for a moment to interfere with the doing of the right. Our fathers, thank 
 God, had sufficient moral courage to insist on the abolition of slavery in the West 
 Indies, even at the cost of millions, and England at that time in point of prosperity 
 was immensely poorer than the England of to-day. Has England degenerated? I 
 cannot and will not believe it." — Bishop Tucker, in a letter to The London Times, 
 quoted in Report of the Church Missionary Society for 1896, p. 63. 
 
 1 Report of lecture by Mr. Donald Mackenzie in The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 
 December, 1895, p. 2z6. In his report to the Society he sums up his conclusions 
 as follows : " In looking at the whole question calmly, I am convinced that the legal 
 status of slavery should be abolished at the earliest possible moment. I did think 
 that compensation might form part of the scheme, but when we consider that all 
 treaties and decrees have been thrown aside as waste paper, and that slavery has been 
 going on for upwards of twenty years in violation of solemn engagements entered into 
 -with this country, I think that the question of compensation should be dismissed ; in 
 fact, I very much doubt if any slaves imported prior to 1873 are in existence. But 
 any measure which the Government may propose for the abolition of slavery in Zan- 
 zibar and Pemba will share the same fate as former treaties and decrees, unless the 
 carrying out of such measure is intrusted to a special staff of English officers ap- 
 pointed for the purpose." 
 
 3 The Anti-Slavery Reporter, December, 1895, pp. 220, 257, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 143 
 
 In the regions around Lake Nyassa, now a British protectorate, 
 vigorous measures have been taken by Commissioner H. H. Johnston 
 to stamp out the slave-traffic. Military operations 
 upon a considerable scale have been conducted, Vigorous restrictions 
 
 - , . , - , . , '" *h* Nyassaland 
 
 and several promment leaders among the Arab Protectorate, 
 
 slave-traders have been slain and their business 
 broken up. A chain of forts has been established in the Nyassaland 
 Protectorate under the administration of this energetic representative 
 of the British Government, which guard the old slave-routes so eflEectively 
 that the whole traffic may be said to be under surveillance and control 
 within the limits of the protectorate.^ The Commissioner reports 
 (Africa, No. 4, 1896, p. 25): "I have the pleasure now to inform 
 your Lordship that, as far as I am aware, there does not exist a single 
 independent avowedly slave-trading chief within the British Central 
 Africa Protectorate." He also writes in a recent letter : " We have had 
 splendid news from Lake Nyassa lately. I do not think now there is 
 a recalcitrant slave-trading chief left unconquered. With the fall of 
 Tambala the last slave-trading Yao chief in the protectorate has gone." ^ 
 Interesting tidings from this section of Africa have come through the 
 reports of Mr. E. J. Glave, who was sent out by the Century Company 
 to obtain information on the slave-trade for publication in The Century 
 Magazine. Mr. Glave entered Africa at the Zambesi, and journeyed to 
 Lake Nyassa, and from thence in a northwesterly direction until he de- 
 scended the Congo and reached Matadi. While waiting there for the 
 homeward-bound steamer, he was stricken with fever and died.^ A series 
 of illustrated articles made up of extracts from his jotirnal are to be 
 found in The .Century Magazine, commencing with August, 1896, in 
 which graphic pictures are given of the struggle with the exporting 
 slave-trade in the Nyassa Protectorate. He speaks incidentally of 
 Livingstone aad his wife as the pioneers of civilization in those regions. 
 In Central Africa for October, 1895, is printed an extract from one 
 of his letters, describing his journey from Lake Nyassa to Lake Bang- 
 weolo, in which he speaks of the earnest request of natives whom he 
 met, that white men might come to their country and protect them 
 against the slave-raiders, " who are playing terrible havoc all over the 
 land." He reports seeing " the ruins of dozens of villages which have 
 been destroyed by these raiders, and the occupants carried into slavery." 
 
 1 " Correspondence Respecting Operations against Slave-Traders in British Cen- 
 tral Africa " (Parliamentary documents, Africa, Nos. 2 and 4, 1896}. 
 ' The Church of Scotland Mission Record, June, 1896, p. 198. 
 • The Century Magazine, October, 1895. 
 
144 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In the Island of Madagascar a decree of the Queen, in 1877, freed 
 the African slaves in her dominion, and forbade their import or export ; 
 
 yet domestic native slaves and serfs exist in abun- 
 The status In dance, and, according to a special correspondent 
 
 Madagascar. of The London Times, writing under date of April 
 
 II, 1 89s, slave-raids are still carried on in the in- 
 terior of the island, and in another communication an account is given 
 of the slave-market in the capital.^ The Ibara tribesmen and the 
 Sakalava are represented as inveterate slave-dealers. The Hovas them- 
 selves stand in terror of these cruel forest tribes.' The status, however, 
 has been happily changed from what it was at the beginning of the 
 present century, when Madagascar was an original source of supply 
 for the slave-trade, and from three to four thousand Malagasy were, 
 according to reliable data, exported annually to America or the West 
 Indies. In 181 7 this slave-trade was aboUshed by treaty between 
 England and Madagascar.^ 
 
 Our survey of the African Continent reveals encouraging progress 
 in comparison with the state of things a generation ago, but it is plain 
 that there is still much to be done before the barbarities of the slave- 
 trade will cease. Were it not for the restraining influence of European 
 governments, albeit as yet too imperfectly exercised, we should still have 
 this cursed business in full blast. With the entrance of European con- 
 trol, the estabUshment of commerce, the opening of roads, and espe- 
 cially of railways, and the more vigorous intervention of the authorities, 
 we may hope that the traffic in slaves will gradually disappear. 
 
 In the Pacific Islands the kidnapping of natives for purposes of the 
 slave-trade has been known even under European traders, and Pacific 
 
 Islanders have been transported to South America. 
 
 The Kanaka traffic in Evcn as late as 1890, " the ship ' Alma ■ took four 
 
 the Pacmc Islands, hundred natives of Micronesia to Guatemala, and 
 
 two years afterwards only one hundred and eighty 
 of them were living, the rest having died of fevers contracted in the 
 malarious swamps of the plantations. In 1892 the brig 'Tahiti' took 
 three hundred natives from the Gilbert Islands to labor on plantations 
 in Central America, and was capsized near the coast of Mexico. Not 
 one of its living freight was ever heard of." Even steamers have been 
 
 1 " Slavery [domestic] still exists, and, to the disgrace of the Malagasy, slaves 
 are still bought and sold in the weekly market."— Rev. R. Baron (L. M. S.), 
 Antananarivo. [The French Government happily abolished it September 29, 1896.] 
 
 2 The Indian Evangelical Review, October, 1895, p. 175. 
 
 ' Home, " The Story of the London Missionary Society," p. 172, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 145 
 
 employed in the same service. These unfortunate islanders on arrival in 
 Guatemala are put to work upon the plantations under conditions which 
 virtually amount to slavery.^ Rev. John G. Paton, of the New Hebrides 
 Mission, has investigated the Kanaka labor-traffic, which he pronounces 
 a species of colonial slavery. He has estimated that seventy thousand 
 Pacific Islanders have been taken from their homes by slave-hunters.^ 
 It was in revenge for the crime of kidnapping by traders that Bishop 
 Patteson was slain upon one of the islands of the Santa Cruz group 
 in September, 1 87 1. An account of the Queensland Kanaka traffic and 
 its horrors is given by the Rev. Oscar Michelsen.^ 
 
 The trade in coolies from China and India, and to a very limited 
 extent from Japan, for the South American and West Indian plantations 
 has been in some respects not far removed from 
 a veritable slave-traffic. The slave-trade as it is ^he cooUe-trade in 
 known in Africa does not exist in China, but the China and India, 
 coolie-traffic gained a bad prominence before it 
 was brought within restrictions.* The Japanese Government, to its 
 honor, fought it fiercely and successfully.' The coolie-traffic from 
 India for the West Indian plantations has been, and is still, open to the 
 same strictvires. The position of the so-called coolie emigrant when he 
 reaches his destination is little better than a slave. As late as 1893 
 there were one Dutch and seven English agencies engaged in the trans- 
 portation of coolies. They are usually transported in sailing vessels, of 
 which seventeen cleared from Calcutta alone in 1893, as well as three 
 steamships. The exportation from Calcutta amounted to 10,674, mak- 
 ing an average of 533 per vessel. " Recently about four hundred of 
 these ' voluntary ' emigrants begged the people of Calcutta to be liber- 
 
 1 Alexander, " The Islands of the Pacific," p. 37. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 40; John G. Paton, " Autobiography," part i., p. 213. 
 s Michelsen, " Cannibals Won for Christ," chap. xxi. 
 
 * " Slavery and the slave-trade do not exist in China in the shape associated with 
 our ideas of them. The coolie-traffic between the Southern Provinces and Peru, 
 which caused so much feeling a few years back, approached them most nearly. 
 That, however, was not an indigenous evil, and it has, I think, been since strictly 
 regulated, if not largely stopped. The domestic slavery of the country is mostly 
 confined to the use of purchased female children as servants, who often become con- 
 cubines in the families of their masters, or are again sold for this purpose. The 
 most abominable form of this curse is the purchase of women and girls for transport 
 to distant cities for immoral uses. In the frequently recurring times of famine there 
 are always wretches who succeed in obtaining many victims from the region affected. " 
 —Rev. Jonathan Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, North China. Cf. Graves, " Forty 
 Years in China," pp. 149, 150. 
 
 5 Griifis, "The Mikado's Empire," pp. 566-568. 
 
146 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ated, as they had been made to leave their homes and relations by force. 
 They attacked their escort, and about thirty escaped. The rest, how- 
 ever, were driven down to the landing by the police as if. they were 
 sheep." 1 
 
 In India there is no slave-trade so called, but children are often sold, 
 especially in times of famine, and there is also a secret trade in female 
 slaves in certain districts of the country. " Malwa has long been noted 
 for its traffic in females." Many of the Rajput chiefs have their retinue 
 of slaves. At the time of the distressing famine in Rajputana, in 1 868- 
 70, " children were sold by their parents for sums varying from one to 
 five rupees." These incidents are happily rare, however, in India at 
 the present day, and the watchfulness of the Government is most effec- 
 tive. In Persia there is slavery to a considerable extent, the ranks 
 being recruited from the African coast, by way of the Persian Gulf or 
 across Arabia overland.^ 
 
 The atrocious cruelties of the African slave-trade have been vividly 
 described by Livingstone, Stanley, Baker, Cameron, and others, and 
 there is no need of dwelling upon the subject here.^ " Fire and Sword 
 in the Sudan," by Slatin Pasha, previously referred to, contains recent 
 information. 
 
 2. Slavery.— Slavery is linked with the slave-trade, both as cause 
 and effect. It is one of the ancient sorrows of the world, but we can- 
 not deal with its history here.* It is pleasant to 
 The passing of slavery observe that there are some sections of the Oriental 
 in Christendom. -i^oxlA where it has never existed. This is notably 
 the case among the Japanese.^ There are other 
 regions where happily it has been abolished. With the singular excep- 
 tion of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, this has been true of the British Em- 
 
 1 Correspondence of Die Kolnische Zeitung, Cologne, quoted in The Literary 
 Digest, September 8, 1894. 
 
 2 The Anti-Slavery Reporter, March-April, 1896, p. 72. 
 
 8 Blaikie, "The Personal Life of David Livingstone," pp. 390-424; Stanley, 
 " Slavery and the Slave-Trade in Africa " ; Johnston, " Missionary Landscapes in 
 the Dark Continent," pp. 253-259. 
 
 * Cf. Ingram, "History of Slavery and Serfdom"; Brace, " Gesta Christi," 
 chaps, v., vi., xxi., xxviii. ; Schmidt, " The Social Results of Early Christianity," 
 pp. 75-100. 
 
 6 " I am not able to learn that slavery proper ever existed in Japan at any time 
 in her history. The social condition of a class may at one time have been as bad as 
 slavery or worse, but it could not be called slavery. "-Rev. David S. Spencer 
 (M. E. M. S.), Nagoya, Japan. 
 
Rescued Galla Slave Boys and Girls at Lovedale, South Africa. 
 
 Christian Training to the Rescue. 
 (F. C. S.) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 147 
 
 pire since 1833, including its West Indian colonies and British Guiana. 
 In 1848 France declared that no more slaves should be admitted into 
 French territory. Serfdom in Russia ceased with the decree of Alex- 
 ander II., in 1861, and the Emancipation Proclamation of President 
 Lincoln, in 1863, restored to freedom 6,000,000 bondmen in the United 
 States. In 1889 slavery was abolished in Brazil, as it had been in most 
 of the South Americaii repubUcs at the time of their establishment. 
 It is now the universal pohcy of civilized nations to prohibit the 
 status of slavery. 
 
 It is an evil which still exists, however, in vast sections of the non- 
 Christian world. It may be said to be universal in Africa, except where 
 European influence has been exerted in prohibi- 
 tion.i It is characteristic of all Mohammedan soci- i*s continuance in 
 ety, and is found in Madagascar, where fully one "on-chrutun woid! 
 third of the population is in bondage. In China, 
 Korea, Siam, Assam, in some of the Native States of India, in Afghanis- 
 tan, and in Central America it is also to be found. It is hardly neces- 
 sary to refer at any length to the fact of its prevalence in Africa, as every 
 explorer, traveller, and missionary bears witness to the evil ; nor does the 
 fact that it is a feature of the social and religious system of Islam need 
 to be dwelt upon. In Madagascar, although slavery is rather of a domes- 
 tic and patriarchal kind, with less severity than usual in the treatment 
 of slaves, yet its evils are by no means light. The slave-market is a 
 famiUar sight, and the separation of families is of common occiurence.* 
 As France has now assumed colonial supervision of Madagascar, the 
 question of the application to the island of the laws of France per- 
 taining to the abolition of slavery has engaged the attention of the 
 French Government. M. Lebon, the French Minister for the Colonies, 
 has declared that the law of abolition is now applicable to Madagascar, 
 but he remarks further that " the Government reserved to itself the right 
 of promulgating this law at the time when it deemed fitting, in order 
 that the situation might not be complicated by a too hurried application 
 of its provisions." The law went into effect September 29, 1896. 
 
 1 Liberia, Bulletin No. 8, pp. 14-23. 
 
 2 " Slavery is still a great evil in Madagascar. It is true that the condition of 
 many of the slaves is not hard, the slavery being akin to that of the old patriarchal 
 times ; but still the fact remains that slaves can be bought and sold, and that husband 
 and wife and parents and children can be separated. The conditions under which a 
 slave can redeem himself or herself are often very hard, and at death the property 
 of a slave can be, and often is, claimed by the master or mistress."— Rev. J. Pearse 
 (L. M. S.), Fianarantsoa, Tamatave, Madagascar. Cf. Cousins, " The Madagascar 
 ,pf To-day," p. 59; The Missionary Review of the World, June, 189S, p. 433- 
 
148 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In China domestic slavery, mostly of females, exists extensively 
 throughout the empire. The girls are usually purchased from their 
 
 parents while still young, and the trade is especially 
 Domestic slavery in active in times of famine, drought, or pestilence, 
 """"a'nfrsaf ■""• or merely as an expedient in poverty. There is 
 
 much that is shocking and suggestive of grinding 
 drudgery, attended often by ill-treatment, which comes to light now and 
 then concerning the domestic features of Chinese slavery.i a darker 
 aspect of it is that servitude is often another name for immorality. In 
 Korea, although the abolition of slavery has been declared by edict, 
 the institution still exists, and the law is practically inoperative, but it 
 is almost altogether coniined to the nobles and to the wealthier families 
 of the land.2 In Siam the Government is virtually in place of master 
 over its subjects, and in its demands for service pays little deference to 
 personal rights. In addition, a species of slavery for debt prevails ex- 
 tensively, which is also true in the Laos country .3 In Assam the same 
 custom of selling children to pay debts, or in some cases as offerings to the 
 demons, is a pitiable incident in many a family history. If some child 
 of the family is stricken with disease, the superstitious parents, while 
 dreading and bemoaning the supposed necessity, will sell their children 
 one after another in the hope of providing an appeasing sacrifice for 
 the demon and securing the release and recovery of the sick member 
 of the family. Children thus sold are rarely redeemed, and what is 
 practically a state of slavery is thereby created.* 
 
 1 Douglas, "Society in China," pp. 346-350; Henry, "The Cross and the 
 Dragon," p. 51. 
 
 2 " Slavery and Feudalism in Korea," The Korean Repository, October, 1895; 
 Griffis, " Corea," p. 238. 
 
 3 " All, except the Chinese residents, are slaves of the general Government, and 
 hence at the call of the Government master, whose whims usually demand more than 
 is strictly lawful. Besides this, fully half of the population are debt slaves of the 
 other half. These are sold into slavery, a child by a parent, a wife by her husband, 
 or it may be a voluntary sale."— Dr. James B. Thompson (P. B. F. M. N.), Petch- 
 aburee, Siam. 
 
 " Slavery is another evil of our land. Very often a man becomes financially em- 
 barrassed. He will borrow money where he can, and will often give himself and 
 family as security Usually he gives one of his children ' to sit on the interest,' as 
 our people express it. They never hesitate to put their children out in this way. 
 When such debts are not paid by a certain time the entire family is often taken as 
 slaves."— Rev. D. G. Collins (P. B. F. M. N.), Chieng Mai, Laos. 
 
 * " Masters do not sell their slaves by auction, although they exchange or trans- 
 fer them to others under certain conditions. But people sell themselves and their 
 children in order to get money to pay their debts or to sacrifice to the demons. 
 It is a kind of pawning themselves and their children until they find money, which 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 149 
 
 In India, although the status of slavery is not recognized by the 
 British Government, and the institution as such is prohibited, yet in the 
 Native States, and to some extent in British terri- 
 
 , , , , , 1 .... Servitude for debt in 
 
 tory, is found a system of labor slavery which is the Native states of 
 substantially the same as the bondage for debt above ^°^'^- '^'^^ status in 
 referred to.^ It is one of the advantages of British 
 rule that the days of the old slave-kings have forever passed. The 
 attachment of serfs to the soil, which amounted to slavery a century 
 ago, has been gradually mitigated and banished by British law.^ Until 
 1843, however, the hereditary slaves in Madras were sold with the land.* 
 In Afghanistan the Amir has come into notoriety of late upon charges 
 of being a kidnapper and slave-raider among neighboring independent 
 tribes, especially the Kafirs of the Hindu- Kush. In fact, the extinction 
 of the latter people seems to be well under way. That slavery exists 
 in Afghanistan is evident. A recent volume by John Alfred Gray, 
 M. B., late Surgeon to the Amir, entitled " At the Court of the Amir," 
 gives undoubted testimony upon this point. He reports that "the 
 slaves of Kabul are those who have been kidnapped from Kafiristan, 
 and who are prisoners of war taken when some tribe breaks out in 
 rebellion against the Amir." * Other quotations fully confirming the 
 status of slavery might be given. Slavery for debt exists in some sec- 
 
 they hardly ever do, to buy themselves or their children back. I have seen whole 
 families becoming, to all practical purposes, childless in this way." — Rev. Robert 
 Evans (W. C. M. M. S.), Mawphlang, Shillong, Assam. 
 
 1 " Legally there is no slavery. Virtually all the lower castes or outcastes are the 
 slaves of the upper castes, who gain power by lending them money, and in time rob 
 them of all their possessions, and compel all, men, women, and children, to work for 
 them. They are often very cruel to them, and persecute them in case they try to 
 benefit themselves by becoming Christians."— Dr. John Scudder (Ref. C. A.), 
 Vellore, India. 
 
 " There is a system of labor slavery. A poor man is in debt to a rich man and 
 works for him. Unfortunately, as I have found in hundreds of cases, the debt never 
 seems to decrease. When the poor fellow tries to escape his master, that master 
 threatens him with a civil suit, and the old order goes on. If he cannot work he 
 binds out his son to the rich man, and the same process continues. It is not slavery 
 in the buying and selling of the man, but it is so in the absolute control of his ser- 
 vice at the wish of the master, and supported by the civil law, though unwittingly, 
 as far as Government goes. There are many thousands in such labor slavery among 
 the people I know."— Rev. L. L. Uhl, Ph.D. (Luth. G. S.), Guntur, India. 
 
 ^ Hunter, " The Indian Empire," p. 84. 
 
 3 Raghavaiyangar, " Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty 
 Years of British Administration," p. 143, and Appendices, pp. Iviii., Ixviii. 
 
 * The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 'ja.nvia.xy-'Fehiuaxy, 1896, pp. 13-34; The Imperial 
 and Asiatic Qunrterly Review, January, 1896, pp. I53-IS9' 
 
150 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PliOGRESS 
 
 tions of Central America. The Rev. E. M. Haymaker (P. B. F. M. N.), 
 of Guatemala City, writes : " Virtual slavery exists in some parts of the 
 republic. The law compels a laborer to stay and work with his 
 employer till his debt is discharged. The employer, however, has the 
 means at hand by which he can, through an ever-increasing debt, keep 
 the laborer in his power forever, the debt descending from father to 
 son. He can abuse and beat the laborer as he pleases, for a mere 
 ' Indian ' would have no hope whatever before the judge against so 
 powerful an opponent." 
 
 The existence of slavery in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, an English 
 protectorate since 1890, is an anomaly which is exciting vigorous dis- 
 cussion in anti-slavery circles in England, and the 
 The question of slavery British Government has been repeatedly memorial- 
 in Zanzibar. j^gd to abolish finally the status of slavery in Zanzi- 
 bar and Pemba. The recent death of the Sultan 
 and the attempt at revolution will perhaps facilitate this step on the 
 part of the Government. The importation of slaves has been forbidden 
 by treaty since 1872, and by a decree of the British Government all 
 children born within the bounds of the sultanate after December, 
 1889, are free, so that the only really lawful slaves in the protec- 
 torate at the present time are the survivors of those imported before 
 June, 1873, or their children born before 1890. The drift of events, 
 however, has been to maintain slavery at about its usual standard, 
 since a secret importation, of an average of 6000 slaves annually, has 
 been going on in defiance of the treaty. The number actually in 
 bondage in Zanzibar and Pemba is variously estimated from 140,000 by 
 government officials, to 266,000 by Mr. Donald Mackenzie, the recent 
 special Commissioner of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society 
 to investigate slavery and the slave-trade on the East Coast of Africa. 
 The effort to secure from the Government the total abolition of the 
 recognized status of slavery in Zanzibar is timely, since the existence 
 of slavery is an overwhelming temptation to the slave-trade, and adds 
 immensely to the difficulties of preventing it. In a communication, 
 before referred to, published in The Times (London), June 23, 1896, 
 Bishop Tucker of East Africa urges most earnestly the immediate ab- 
 olition of the status of slavery in the protectorate. His letter was ac- 
 companied by a memorial, which was forwarded to the Consul-General 
 at Zanzibar by English missionaries of East Africa, praying that the ac- 
 tion suggested might be speedily taken by Her Majesty's Government.^ 
 
 Of the characteristic evils of slavery little need be said. They are 
 * [Slavery in Zanzibar was abolished April 6, 1897.] 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 151 
 
 too manifest to require discussion. Its cruel wounds, wherever it 
 exists, are as fresh to-day as in the past, and its gross scandals are as 
 pronounced now as at any former period. That Christian missions 
 have had an honorable record in mitigating the miseries of slavery and 
 dealing stiurdy blows at the abominable traffic in slaves is a fact to 
 which we shall give attention in another connection. 
 
 3. Cannibalism.— Cannibalism is one of the most fiendish and 
 loathsome aspects of social barbarism. It is a fearful incentive to the 
 crime of murder, and a stimulus to every bloodthirsty passion in the 
 human breast. Strange to say, at a recent meeting of the British As- 
 sociation for the Advancement of Science, at Ipswich, it found a mild 
 apologist in Mr. H. A. Thrum, who deprecated its classification among 
 vices, and would regard it rather as " a habit " ! Its story for ages has 
 been written in blood amid brutal scenes and inhuman orgies. Its 
 prevalence has probably been far more extensive than the civilized 
 world has realized. It is one of those hidden mysteries of iniquity which 
 even heathenism instinctively conceals. Although much has come to 
 light concerning it, its dark secrets will ever remain as part of the 
 unwritten history of pure savagery. 
 
 The testimony as to its existence in the past among degraded races 
 is abundant and cumulative, and need not be reviewed at any length 
 here. Our interest in the subject centres rather in 
 the question of its existence at the present time, pj^ "ie^t\^^o"g^*l". 
 Are we to regard it as a relic of the past, or must age races ? 
 
 we consider it as still characteristic of the savage 
 life of the world to-day? A tendency to minimize its practice and 
 make light of its existence has been manifest in some quarters, but the 
 evidence that it is still practised in our day in many of the haunts of 
 savagery is sufficient to justify its place in the list of the regnant evils 
 of pagan society. Among the aborigines of Australia, especially the 
 Papuans of Queensland, cannibal feasts are a common occurrence, as 
 Lumholtz declares.! The Maoris of New Zealand were detestable canni- 
 bals until the British Government took control of the islands, and the 
 saving touch of Christianity transformed the whole social economy of a 
 wildly savage race.2 In New Guinea, the Rev. James Chalmers has 
 
 1 Lumholtz, " Among Cannibals," p. loi ; The Missionary Review, July, 1896, 
 p. 492. 
 
 2 Tucker, " The English Church in Other Lands," pp. 84-95 > Page. " Among 
 the Maoris," p. 149. 
 
162 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 discovered abundant evidence of cannibal practice of the most filthy 
 and barbarous description.^ He reports that it is the custom among 
 the natives, when a man is shot down, for all to rush upon him for the 
 purpose of biting his nose clean off and swallowing it, as the one who 
 succeeds in accomplishing this feat " is looked upon as greater than 
 the person who shot him." It is only a few years ago that the un- 
 fortunate ship " St. Paul," with three hundred and sixty Chinese pas- 
 sengers, fell into the hands of the natives. " They cooped up the victims 
 like animals marked for slaughter, and clubbed and cooked so many 
 every day till only four were left." ^ In the New Hebrides cannibal 
 feasts are still of frequent occurrence, although upon several of the 
 islands Christian missionary work has banished these scenes of cruelty. 
 Among the " head-hunters " of Formosa a certain fastidiousness seems 
 to control their cannibal instincts, as they usually select such delicacies 
 as the brain and heart for their feasts.' In many of the Pacific Islands 
 the reign of cannibalism has been long and terrible, especially in the Fiji, 
 Hervey, Society, and Marquesas groups.* Among the Fijis in the early 
 days of missionary labors scenes were witnessed which were " too horri- 
 ble to be described, too full of fiendish cruelty to be imagined." The 
 people were represented as " going beyond the ordinary limits of rapine 
 and bloodshed, and violating the elementary instincts of mankind." 
 While the aspect of many of these islands has been greatly changed by 
 missionary effort and by the controlling power of civilized governments, 
 yet there are dark corners where the old customs still linger, and from 
 which the inhumanities of cannibalism have not wholly disappeared. In 
 Fiji, however, cannibalism is now wholly extinct, and Christianity has 
 fairly illumined the dismal darkness of former years. 
 
 The African Continent has been and is still the scene of innumer- 
 able cannibal atrocities. The northern and southern sections are, how- 
 ever, comparatively free, as there is nothing to 
 Cannibal ferocity still report north of the Soudan or south of the Congo 
 untamed in Africa, gtate, although, according to Dr. Liengme, of the 
 Romande Mission in Southeast Africa, Gazaland, 
 in Portuguese territory, south of the Zambesi, is not free from the 
 charge of cannibalism. We quote his words as recorded in the Bulletin 
 Missionaire.^ The testimony of the Rev. Josiah Tyler, for many years 
 
 • Chalmers, " Pioneering in New Guinea," pp. 59, 61, 62. 
 8 The Missionary Record, August, 1895, p. 230. 
 
 3 MacKay, " From Far Formosa," pp. 274, 276. 
 
 * Ratzel, " The History of Mankind," vol. i, pp. 297-299. 
 
 « " Lately ten thousand men and between two and three thousand women and 
 
< 
 
 w 
 
 o 
 
 Ed 
 S 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 153 
 
 a missionary in Zululand, is to the eflFect that no Zulu-speaking people 
 are addicted to cannibalism, with the single exception of some tribes 
 living on the shores of Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyassa.i In the 
 central belt of the Continent, however, from the East Coast to the 
 West, especially up and down the many tributaries of the Congo, can- 
 nibalism is still practised with every possible accompaniment of atro- 
 cious cruelty. In a paper descriptive of three years of travel in the 
 extreme easterly regions of the Congo State, read before the Royal 
 Geographical Society in London, on March 1 1, 1895, by Captain S. L. 
 Hinde, of the Belgian service, startling details are given illustrative 
 of the ferocious spirit and horrible customs of some of the Congo tribes 
 living between the Lualaba and Lomami rivers. In his descriptions 
 of N'Gandu (Gandu), a fortified town on the bank of the Lomami 
 River, he speaks of four gates to the city, the approach to which is in 
 each case a pavement of human skulls. He counted more than two 
 thousand skulls in the pavement of one gate alone. The stakes form-, 
 ing the entrenchment around the town were crowned with skulls. 
 These skulls were largely relics of cannibal practices. He speaks of a 
 slave-raider who had gathered together about ten thousand cannibal 
 brigands. He recounts, among incidental illustrations of native barbar- 
 ity, the death of a chief a short time previous to his visit, into whose 
 grave one hundred men were thrown, having previously been killed. 
 Upon these the chief's body was laid, and over it were thrown one 
 hundred hve women and the grave closed upon them. Over this 
 mausoleum a magnificent house was built. Other details, referring 
 more especially to cannibalism, are given.2 A French explorer named 
 
 children in strange costumes went through the royal dance in the king's presence. 
 Nothing could be more savage. Alas! human sacrifices were not lacking. It is 
 the custom on the last day for a young boy and girl to be killed. At night near sun- 
 set a young ' beef ' is brought by the people of the king's household into a tightly 
 closed kraal. An eager fight is begun between them and the animal, which they 
 must, without any weapon, simply by their strength of arm, harass, throw down, 
 disembowel, and kill, pushing it with savage cries. When they have despatched the 
 animal, they bring, wrapped in reeds, the bodies of the two children who have been 
 sacrificed. The flesh of the victims is mingled with that of the animal. Then all 
 the young boys are seized and brought, willingly or by force, into the kraal. Some 
 of them escape, unwilling to eat human flesh; others eagerly accept the invitation." 
 —Quoted in The Missionary Herald, October, 1894, p. 431. 
 
 1 Illtistrated Africa, October, 1895, p. 6. 
 
 2 " Throughout this whole region of the Batetelas no gray-headed people are 
 seen, nor any that are lame or blind. At the first sign of approaching old age the 
 parents are eaten by their children."— Report of Captain Hinde, GeographicalJour- 
 nal. May, 1895. 
 
164 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 De Poumayrac, who ascended the Mobangi, a tributary of the Congo, 
 in 1892, was attacked by members of a cannibal tribe and murdered 
 with many of his party. The occasion was celebrated by a cannibal 
 feast. The Ngombes, who occupy a long strip of land between the 
 Lopori and Congo rivers, are all iierce cannibals, and are the terror 
 of neighboring tribes. Mr. Vincent presents the same testimony in his 
 chapter on the Congo Free State.i Similar statements have been made 
 concerning the Babus, Bangelas, Balubas, and Malelas, all tribes of the 
 Congo. Mr. Dorsey Mohun, a United States commercial agent and an 
 associate of Captain Hinde in his travels in Eastern Congo, who has 
 resided two years in the Congo Free State, reports it as his judgment 
 that there are not less than twenty million cannibals at the present time 
 in that State. He speaks of surprising a village one day in the midst 
 of a cannibal feast, and of witnessing the funeral of a great chief and 
 the burial alive of fourteen persons in the grave with his dead body. 
 
 The whole West Coast north of the equator, as far as the Upper 
 
 Niger, if we penetrate the Continent but a short distance from the sea, 
 
 seems to be alive with cannibals. In November, 
 
 The West Coast noto- jg - jyfjgg Kingsley, the niecc of the late Charles 
 
 rious for cannibal ^ •' o ji ... 
 
 atrocities. Kingsley, returned to England from a visit to the 
 
 West Coast in the vicinity of the Gaboon River. 
 She explored the Ogowe for a distance of two hundred and six miles, and 
 during her journey through the country of the Fang tribe encoun- 
 tered cannibalism in the shape of a determined purpose to kill and eat 
 some of her attendants, who were members of a hostile tribe. The 
 Fangs are one of the few tribes in Africa who eat their own dead. She 
 reports that she found no burial-places, but in most of the native mud 
 huts pieces of human bodies were being kept just as civilized people 
 keep eatables in their larders.^ Similar statements as to the cannibal 
 habits of the Fangs are made by the Rev. W. S. Bannerman, of the Ga- 
 boon Mission of the American Presbyterians. A missionary explorer, 
 the Rev. F. Autenrieth, of the Basel Mission, has recently made an exten- 
 sive journey back of the German colony of Kamerun, into the interior 
 range of the great Kamerun Mountains, and penetrated into regions 
 where no white man had previously been. He reports that the country 
 he explored is inhabited by cannibals, and that he himself, without his 
 knowledge at the time, was condemned to be killed and eaten, but fortu- 
 nately escaped the fate assigned him.^ Proceeding still farther north to 
 
 1 Vincent, "Actual Africa,'' p. 411. 
 
 2 The Missionary Record, January, 1896, p. 21. 
 
 » Account in The Mail (London Times), May 8, 1896. 
 
TitE SOCIAL EVILS OP THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 165 
 
 the delta of the Niger and the immense region which forms its Hinterland, 
 we find abundant evidence in the reports of Government officials, recent 
 explorers, and resident missionaries to confirm the statement that the 
 reign of cannibalism is almost undisturbed, except in regions under the 
 immediate control of European administration. A report of Sir Claude 
 Macdonald, in 1893, upon the state of affairs in the Oil Rivers Pro- 
 tectorate, speaks of cannibals who inhabit the banks of the Cross River. 
 The report of Sir John Kirk on the recent disturbances at Brass, in the 
 Niger Coast Protectorate, speaks of the murder of prisoners by the 
 natives, and the cannibalism of the people. Their excuse for such 
 conduct was that it was their custom under such circumstances to kill 
 and eat their captives.^ The writings of the late Bishop Crowther 
 contain statements to the same effect. He says : " Cannibalism pre- 
 vails to a very great extent among the tribes from the delta to the 
 regions of the Lower Niger, for instance, as among the people of 
 Okrika, by whom one hundred and fifty prisoners taken from the op- 
 posite shore were divided among the chiefs to be killed and eaten. With 
 the exception of eleven which fell to the lot of the church-goer chiefs, 
 who took care of their share and spared them, the one hundred and 
 thirty-nine remaining prisoners, which were divided among the heathen 
 chiefs and people, were killed and eaten." A letter from the Rev. E. 
 Deas, of the United Presbyterian Mission to Old Calabar, recounting 
 the state of things in that region, refers to the existence of cannibal 
 markets where slaves are sold for food. He himself had quite recently 
 saved two sick women from being eaten by their fellow-creatures.^ 
 The Katholische Missionen of Freiburg, in a recent account of a journey 
 made in 1895 by Father Bubendorf, of the Congregation of the Holy 
 Cross, from Onitsha (on the Niger) to a neighboring district, reports 
 his statement that he was a horrified eye-witness of the slaughter of a 
 group of unfortunate captives before a king's dwelling. He writes: 
 " Every moment men, women, and even children, passed me, one with 
 a human leg on his shoulder, others carrying the lungs or the heart of 
 an unfortunate Kroo boy in their hands. Several times I was offered 
 my choice of these morsels dripping with gore." ^ 
 
 Several communications in the English papers in the summer of 1895 
 reported the atrocities committed by an African band in the region of 
 Sierra Leone, known as the " Human Leopards." Several of them 
 
 1 Report in The Mail (London Times), March. 16, 1896. Cf. The Church 
 Missionary Intelligencer, July, 1895, p. 528. 
 
 2 Quoted in Missions of the World, July, 1894, p. 232. 
 
 3 Quoted in Illustrated Africa, November, 1895, p. 3. 
 
156 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 have been captured and executed. They were accustomed to clothe 
 themselves in leopard skins, attack their victim from behind, and stab 
 him with a three-pronged dagger. The result was a cannibal feast. A 
 correspondent of The Saturday Review, referring to the recent trial of 
 members of this band, calls attention to the difference in method of 
 cannibalism on the West Coast from that which prevails on the East 
 Coast. In West Africa the custom is to have the barbaric feast follow 
 immediately the slaughter of the victims. On the East Coast an ele- 
 ment of domestic economy seems to pervade cannibal customs, since 
 the flesh of the old, the infirm, and the useless is dried and preserved, 
 with a sort of sacramental reverence, in the family larder. It is offered 
 to guests as a special compliment, to refuse which would be a deadly 
 insult, while its acceptance secures friendship. The correspondent 
 remarks : " Many of our travellers in East Africa have eaten thus sacra- 
 mentally of the ancestors of some dark-skinned potentate." He refers 
 to the cannibalism of the West Coast, however, as the refinement of 
 gluttony, based upon a hideously genuine appetite for fresh human 
 flesh. " Young boys are bought from the dark interior, kept in pens, 
 fattened upon bananas, and finally killed and baked." ^ 
 
 A singular confirmation of these statements concerning cannibalism 
 
 on the West Coast comes from another part of the earth, where some 
 
 of the West Coast superstitions have been trans- 
 
 Tauaova worship in . .... 
 
 the West Indies a relic planted m connection With the slave-trade. In 
 of West Coast canni- Hayti the so-called vaudoux worship is still found 
 
 balism. 
 
 among the secret practices of the Negroes. It is 
 marked by the adoration of the serpent, and attended with the sacrifice 
 of children and feasting upon their flesh. An abominable trade in 
 human flesh for cannibal feasts, and cannibahsm as a revolting luxury 
 among natives, are still dark features of inland life upon the island.^ 
 Froude remarks in this connection: "Behind the immorality, behind 
 the religiosity, there lies active and alive the horrible revival of West 
 African superstition : the serpent worship, the child sacrifice, and the 
 cannibahsm." ^ 
 
 4. Human Sacrifices.— The grim tyranny of superstition has 
 exacted the sacrifice of human life among many savage races. Differ- 
 ent motives have inspired the crime, and it has been justified by its 
 
 1 The Saturday Review (London), September 14, 1895. 
 
 2 St. John, " Hayti; or, The Black Republic," pp. 187, 242. 
 ' Froude, " The English in the West Indies," chap. xx. 
 
Men and Women— Native Groups. 
 Native Converts— A Christianized Group. 
 
 Taming and Beautifying the African. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OE THE NON-CHRlSTtAN WORLD 151 
 
 perpetrators either as a tribute to the dignity and station of some per- 
 son of distinction who has died, or as a necessary propitiation offered 
 to some object of worship, under the inspiration of 
 fear, or with a desire to placate. It is also fre- '''''"' prevalence of 
 
 _ .1 i J ^ 1 „ human sacrifice's in the 
 
 quently resorted to as a supposed means of secur- non-christian world, 
 ing successful harvests, or victories in warfare, or 
 hoped-for success in connection with any new undertaking.! It is often 
 considered an essential part of the observance of festival occasions, or 
 an indispensable feature of the ceremonial etiquette of savagery. The 
 ghastly realism of the scene appeals in a vivid way to the native ima- 
 gination. In many sections of the earth the practice has been greatly 
 checked within a century.^ "Previous to the year 1837," writes the 
 Rev. T. E. Slater (L. M. S.), " about one hundred and fifty human 
 sacrifices were annually offered in Gumsur," a city situated in East 
 Central India. The Rev. James M. Macphail (F. C. S.) writes that 
 "human sacrifice existed among the Santals until quite recently." 
 There are many locahties in India where the traditions of human sacri- 
 fices, in some instances as a daily event, still linger, especially among 
 the Rajputs, the Khonds, and in the Northern Punjab.^ In many of 
 
 1 " There are two kinds of human sacrifices : first, the immolation of slaves at the 
 funeral of their masters, to accompany the departed spirits into the unseen world 
 and attend them there as they do here ; second, the sacrifices to some fetich. Such 
 human sacrifices are made either to avert some apprehended evil or calamity, or to 
 insure some public benefit. The Ondos, for example, attribute the power of fructify- 
 ing the soil to a fetich represented by a brazen figure, and they offer a man annually 
 to secure (as they believe) an abundant harvest. It is on this principle that the 
 Yorubans, in times of war, offer human sacrifices to the god of war, represented by 
 an iron figure, to insure victory over their enemies." — The Rt. Rev. Charles Phillips, 
 D.D. (C. M. S.), Lagos, West Africa. 
 
 Cf. Macdonald, " Religion and Myth," pp. 39, 51 ; Arnot, " Garenganze," pp. 
 240, 255 ; " Africa and the American Negro," p. 34. 
 
 2 " When a Chinese army first marches against an enemy it is customary to offer 
 a human victim, usually a criminal, to the spirit of the banner. In 1854, when a 
 rebel stronghold was taken by Sengkolinsin, a Mongol prince, the prisoners were 
 offered in sacrifice to the manes of his fallen soldiers, their hearts being eaten by the 
 victors to increase their courage. The horrid orgy is minutely described by a native 
 historian without any note of reprobation. 
 
 " Human blood is held to be the best cement for the foundations of high structures. 
 There are numerous bridges whose stability is said to have been thus secured ; and 
 so obstinate is the old superstition that, when an English cathedral was erected in 
 Shanghai, it was rumored among the natives that twenty children had been buried 
 under its walls. Anciently it was customary every year to sacrifice a beautiful maiden 
 to the god of the Yellow River."— Martin, " A Cycle of Cathay," p. 121. 
 
 3 " In olden times they [the Khonds] worshipped their deities with cruel rites, 
 and offered children in sacrifice to them. The discovery of this practice led to the 
 
168 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the Indian temples the very odor of human sacrifice seems to be still 
 present. The whole subject has been carefully investigated by Dr. 
 Rajendralala Mitra, a distinguished modem scholar of India, who 
 published the result of his researches in The Journal of the Asiatic 
 Society of Bengal. In reply to the contention that human sacrifices are 
 not authorized in the Vedas, but were introduced in later times, Dr. 
 Mitra remarks : " As a Hindu writing on the actions of my forefathers 
 —remote as they are— it would have been a source of great satisfaction 
 to me if I could adopt this conclusion as true, but I regret that I can- 
 not do so consistently with my allegiance to the cause of history." He 
 brings forward abundant evidence from Indian sources to show that 
 " for a long time the rite was common all over Hindustan, and persons 
 are not wanting who suspect that there are still nooks and comers in 
 India where human victims are occasionally slaughtered for the gratifi- 
 cation of the Devi." i In a learned article on " The Brahmanas of the 
 Vedas," by K. S. Macdonald, D.D., published in The Indian Evangel- 
 ical Review, the references to human sacrifices in the Vedas are given 
 in exhaustive detail. In the case of one hundred and seventy-nine 
 different gods the particular kind of human being who should be sacri- 
 ficed is named in each instance.^ In Assam not long since children 
 were offered as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Among the 
 Shans a belief in the eificacy of human sacrifice to procure a good 
 harvest still exists. It is supposed by them that certain nats (spirits) 
 are appeased only by human sacrifice. "The guardian spirit of one 
 of the Salween ferries claims a victim every year, preferably a China- 
 man. The nat saves trouble by capsizing a boat and securing his vic- 
 tim. The ferry is then safe for the rest of the year." * Mr. J. George 
 Scott, in an article on " The Wild Wa : A Head-Hunting Race," pre- 
 
 Gumsur war, which lasted nearly eight years, so stubborn was the resistance of the 
 people. English rule has put down this horrid rite. More than two thousand victims 
 were rescued from sacrifice, and handed over to the care of Indian missionaries. But 
 the people are still enchained by the old superstition. One evening last year, during 
 a drought, Mr. Wilkinson was preaching in the village of Raipoli, and the head man 
 came to ask if he would intercede for them with the Government, and obtain permis- 
 sion for them to offer a living child in sacriAce as their fathers did, to take away 
 disease from their homes and bring rain upon their fields. Mr. Wilkinson told them 
 of Christ, the one sacrifice for all men and all time, but they said this was hard to 
 understand. Their fathers sacrificed every year and in every valley." — The Illus- 
 trated Missionary News, May, 1893, p. 72. 
 
 > Of. " Swami Vivekananda on Hinduism : An Examination of his Address at the 
 Chicago Parliament of Religions," pp. 58, 59. 
 
 2 The Indian Evangelical Review, July, 1895, pp. 102-105. 
 
 ' The Indian Magazine and Review, March, 1896, p. 153, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 159 
 
 sents many illustrations of the abominable atrocities long prevalent 
 among the tribes in the border-lands between the Shan tribes and 
 Yimnan.^ 
 
 Among some of the aborigines of Australia the custom is said still 
 to prevail that in the case of the death of any member of a given tribe 
 his fellow-tribesmen are thereby placed under obli- 
 gations to kill some one else in the next tribe, to "^^ evidence of its ex- 
 
 1- ^^ o A 1 -i^ , ,■ -^ istence in Australasia 
 
 equalize matters.^ Among the Dyaks of Borneo and the South Seas. 
 and the mountain tribes of Formosa human sacri- 
 fices have been common, and are even at the present time resorted to 
 in connection with public events, such as the proclamation of war. 
 
 In the history of the Pacific Islands there are many traces of the 
 bloody rites of human sacrifices. They were known among the Maoris, 
 and in the New Hebrides, and almost universally throughout Polynesia. 
 In the early chronicles of South Sea missions are repeated references 
 to the custom.3 Worship was frequently attended with the sacrifice of 
 life. It is recorded of King Pomare of the Society Islands that " dur- 
 ing his reign of thirty years he had sacrificed two thousand human 
 victims as offerings to his idols." * Upon almost every public occasion 
 a human sacrifice was required. If war was to be declared or some 
 chief died or was threatened with serious illness ; if some public build- 
 ing was to be dedicated or even a new house built for a chief ; if a new 
 idol was to be set up or a new canoe launched, the blood of some 
 human victim, or in some instances of many such, must be offered in 
 honor of the occasion. The horrible reputation of the inhabitants 
 of the Fiji Islands for every species of brutality and cruelty makes it 
 easy to believe that their record for human sacrifices is one of excep- 
 tional atrocity.^ Among the aborigines of the West Indies and the 
 pagan Indians of Guiana^ there is clear evidence of this odious crime. 
 And even at the present time, according to the statement of Dr. Shel- 
 don Jackson, the people of Alaska, during an epidemic of the grippe, 
 " felt that a more malignant spirit than common had got hold of them, 
 and they must needs make greater sacrifices; so men, women, and 
 
 1 The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, 'isonaxy, 1896, pp. 138-152. 
 
 2 The Bishop of Perth, in The Mission Field (S. P. G.), June, 1896, p. 208. 
 
 5 Cousins, " The Story of the South Seas," p. 20. Cf. " Journal of John Hunt, 
 Missionary to Fiji," published in successive numbers of Work and Workers, 1896, 
 and Ratzel, "The History of Mankind," vol. i., pp. 447-449' 
 
 « Alexander, " The Islands of the Pacific," p. 87. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 397. Cf. Ratzel, " The History of Mankind," vol. i., p. 297. 
 
 « "The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana: A Memoir of W. H. Brett, B.D,," 
 by the Rev. F. P, L. Josa, pp. 35-37. 
 
160 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL FSOGRESS 
 
 children were caught by the medicine-men and sacrificed— buried alive 
 to appease the spirit of the grippe." ^ 
 
 The darkest record of all, however, is reserved for Africa, where 
 rivers of blood have been poured out in human sacrifice. The almost 
 universal practice in connection with the death of 
 The horrors of human African chicftains is a bloody holocaustat the 
 sacrifice in Africa. burial. Cameron, in an account of his journey 
 across the Continent in 1874, speaks of "the 
 atrocious sanguinary rites which attend the death of African despots." 
 The resting-place of a chieftain's body is often a bed of living women, 
 and his grave deeply saturated with the blood of victims slain in his 
 honor. Ashanti, Dahomey, and the whole Niger delta with its tribu- 
 taries have witnessed many a scene of sacrificial horror. The reports 
 of English correspondents who accompanied the recent Ashanti ex- 
 pedition of the British Government, speak of hideous masses of bones 
 and skulls of the victims of human sacrifice. An editorial in the 
 London Ti?nes, November 13, 1895, referring to the fact that the ruler 
 of Ashanti had expressly agreed by treaty to renounce human sacrifices 
 and slave-raids, states that " it is notorious that these savage processes 
 still continue." In a chapter on the " City of Blood," in the life of 
 Thomas Birch Freeman, an account is given, based upon the testimony 
 of missionaries who were present at the time, of the funeral cere- 
 monies attending the death of a king, at which forty victims were 
 immolated within two days, and the streets strewn with headless bodies.^ 
 The ground around fetich trees was wet with the blood of victims, 
 while from their branches were suspended portions of human bodies. 
 In the early history of the United Presbyterian Mission in Old Calabar 
 are accounts of the same 'shocking scenes. On the death of Eyamba, 
 a native king, a massacre of his wives and slaves, and even of many 
 other women, took place ; of his hundred wives, thirty were slaughtered.^ 
 Even late reports from these dark regions bear the same story of una- 
 bated bloodshed. The Ijebus have recently sacrificed two hundred and 
 fifty victims to their gods, in order to prevent the white man from taking 
 their country.* The king of Eboe, at his death in 1893, was accom- 
 panied by forty sacrificial victims.^ The late Rev. J. Vemall wrote 
 
 1 The Gospel in all Lands, July, 1894, p. 296. 
 
 2 Milum, " Thomas Birch Freeman, Missionary Pioneer to Ashanti, Dahomey, 
 and Egba," p. 62. Cf. Work and Workers in the Mission Field, January, 1896, p. 
 17; February, 1896, p. 81; and April, 1896, p. 158. 
 
 s Dickie, " Story of the Mission in Old Calabar," p. 29. 
 * Church Missionary Intelligencer, February, 1893, p. lao. 
 5 Medical Missionary Record, February, 1894, p. 40. 
 
A Communion Scene at Banza Manteka 
 
 The assembled native converts, with few exceptions, were formerly savage cannibals. 
 
 The first Christian Endeavor Society in the Congo Valley. 
 
 New Scenes and Faces on the Congo. 
 
 (A. B. M. U.) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 161 
 
 from the Yoruba Mission to the Church Missionary Society that human 
 sacrifices were offered in honor of the dead body of the head chief, 
 Sasere, in 1893.1 The late Bishop Crowther, a native African in con- 
 nection with the Church Missionary Society, often testified to the exis- 
 tence of these cruel practices in the valley of the Niger. 
 
 The Congo contributes its full quota of gruesome evidence. United 
 States Commercial Agent Dorsey Mohun, in his recent Report to Con- 
 gress, states that he was an eye-witness to the tragic death of fourteen 
 persons who were buried alive in honor of a great chief who had died.^ 
 Dr. W. H. Leslie, i. missionary of the American Baptist Missionary 
 Union, located upon the Congo, states that a native chief presented 
 himself for professional treatment whose hand was so shockingly diseased 
 that at first he thought it would have to be amputated, but by power- 
 ful remedies he succeeded in saving all but a small portion of it. The 
 chief remarked to the doctor that " thirty of his subjects had been put 
 to death at different times because he thought they were eating it." * 
 " At Lukenga's royal city," writes Dr. Snyder, of the Southern Presby- 
 terian Church Mission on the Congo, " there is being enacted a horrible 
 tragedy. The brother of the king is lying dead wrapped in cloth, under 
 a shed, and, what is more, he has lain there for two months. And 
 why? Because they have not caught and killed enough people to 
 satisfy the demands of their diabolical superstition. They have killed 
 one hundred, and are now trying to catch one hundred more." * In 
 Uganda, according to the statement of Mr. Ashe, King Mtesa con- 
 fessed that "before the coming of white men to his country he had 
 practised the horrid rites of the kiwendo, when thousands of victims 
 were ruthlessly slaughtered in the performance of the sanguinary rites 
 of Uganda. It was said that when Mtesa rebuilt his father Suna's 
 tomb, the throats of two thousand unhappy human victims were cut at 
 the dead king's grave."* In Abyssinia, according to Macdonald, 
 " human sacrifices to their divinities are common among the people of 
 Senjero." * In Southern Africa the Kaffirs (those tribes south, of the 
 Zambesi) and the Zulus, even in recent times, have been guilty of the 
 same unspeakable atrocities, as Dr. Tyler and Dr. Emil Holub testify.' 
 
 1 " Report of the Church Missionary Society," 1893-94, p. 26. 
 
 2 Quoted in Illustrated Africa, February, 1895, p. 2. 
 
 ' The Baptist Missionary Magazine, May, 1894, p. 147. 
 
 * The Missionary, November, 1894, p. 485. Cf. Regions Beyond, May, 1895, 
 p. 220. 5 Ashe, " Chronicles of Uganda," p. 63. 
 
 « Macdonald, " Religion and Myth," p. 39. 
 
 ' Illustrated Africa, December, 1895, p. 7; March, 1S96, p. 4; and The African 
 News, September, 1893, p. 28. 
 
162 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The world's barbarism is by no means ended. In some of its fair- 
 est regions the passions of demons seem to rage in the human breast. 
 
 5. Cruel Ordeals.— In most instances the ordeals which involve 
 physical torment or exposure to death are resorted to with a view of 
 
 testing and so discovering the innocence or guilt 
 
 The trial by ordeal— its of some suspected person. Thcse ghastly trials 
 
 severity and cruelty, jj^^g \it&ci widely known in the world in various 
 
 forms. The ordeal has been sometimes by fire or, 
 again, by water or by the use of poisons or through personal encounter. 
 Torture has also been employed to ascertain if the consciousness of 
 guilt will bear the test. The peculiar horror which attaches to this 
 custom is the probability in numberless instances of putting an abso- 
 lutely innocent person to death, and in any case, of subjecting the victim 
 to excruciating torture.^ 
 
 Among the Ainu of Northern Japan various barbarous expedients 
 have prevailed to secure confession where a crime was suspected. 
 One was the hot-water ordeal, which was practised in two ways. Ac- 
 cording to one method, the victim was placed in an immense caldron 
 of cold water, under which a blazing fire was kindled, and was kept 
 there until the suffering was so intense that a confession was extorted. 
 This severe test, however, was not common unless the evidence of guilt 
 was strong. Still another method was compelling the accused person 
 to thrust an arm into a pan of boiling water. If the test was refused 
 it was regarded as indicative of guilt ; or if accepted and the result was 
 a severe scalding, this also was supposed to be evidence against the 
 accused person. Only in case the flesh was uninjured was the inno- 
 cence fully demonstrated. Other expedients were by grasping hot iron, 
 or a hot stone held in the palm of the hand. Still another, which was 
 especially a favorite in the case of testing the guilt or innocence of 
 women, was to make them smoke an unusual quantity of tobacco and 
 then drink the ashes of the weed. If made ill they were guilty ; if not, 
 their innocence was established. A more innocent trial was effected 
 by causing a person to drink a cup of water and then throw the empty 
 cup behind him over his head. If the cup fell the right way upward 
 innocence was demonstrated ; if otherwise, guilt was regarded as mani- 
 fest. Another singular trial consisted of seating the person before a 
 
 1 In the semi-pagan " trial by ordeal" among our Saxon forefathers this was 
 actually the case when compurgators did not appear to vouch for the innocence of 
 the accused. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 163 
 
 large tub of water with his mouth placed to it in such a way that he 
 must drink continuously until it was all gone. This process perhaps 
 does not seem very terrifying, but in reality it involved intense pain. 
 If the water was all drank the person was innocent, but if he gave up 
 the attempt it was an indication of guilt. The stake ordeal, hang- 
 ing by the hair, and beating were also resorted to.i In China con- 
 fession is often extorted by processes of ingenious and frightful tor- 
 ture. The diabolical versatility of the Chinese in this respect is 
 notorious.2 
 
 In India festivals are sometimes the scenes of ordeals by passing 
 through fire to exhibit fortitude and devotion in evidence of the reli- 
 gious sincerity of devotees. Among some of the 
 native tribes, as, for example, the Mairs and Kois, ordeais in India, siam, 
 it was customary to challenge one accused to prove *"'' Madagascar, 
 his innocence by thrusting his hand into boiling oil 
 or by grasping red-hot shot. In case any one among the Kois died a 
 natiu-al death it was considered to be the result of the machinations 
 of some enemy, and when the most likely person was settled upon, the 
 corpse of the deceased was brought into his presence, and he was called 
 upon to demonstrate his innocence by undergoing the ordeal of thrust- 
 ing his hand into boiling oil or water.' In Siam and neighboring 
 countries the trial by ordeal has long been known. The tests were 
 similar to those already mentioned, though several of them were of 
 exceptional cruelty. The interest in the subject at present is happily 
 only historical, as the tests are not now practised.* In Madagascar the 
 ordeal by poison, or the use of tangena, was formerly shamefully fre- 
 quent. One out of every ten of the people, it has been computed, has 
 been subjected to it, and half of the victims have died. According to the 
 Rev. W. Ellis, " three thousand people perished every year a sacrifice to 
 this superstition, for the beUef, of course, was that while innocent people 
 siurived the ordeal, it invariably proved fatal to the guilty." * 
 
 Africa has the melancholy distinction of continuing these practices, 
 although in sections of the Continent under the control of European 
 
 1 Batchelor, " The Ainu of Japan,'' pp. 135-138. 
 
 a Norman, " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," chap, xv., on " Chinese 
 Horrors. " 
 
 s " Pictorial Tour Round India," p. 47. Cf. " The History of Christianity in 
 India," p. 87. 
 
 « " Trial by Ordeal in Siam," by Captain G. E. Gerini, The Imperial and Asiatic 
 Quarterly Review, April and July, 1895. 
 
 « Home, " The Story of the London Missionary Society," p. lyS- Cf. Ratzel, 
 " The History of Mankind," vol. i., p. 467, 
 
164 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 administration such cases are now usually the subject of judicial in- 
 vestigation.1 In former times in Old Calabar the death of a chief was 
 supposed to be because he was bewitched by 
 Their prevalence in some One. The suspectcd persons would be at 
 Africa. Qjjj,g subject to the ordeal of drinking the pow- 
 
 dered esere-bean, on the supposition that if guilty 
 they would retain it and die ; if innocent, they would be reKeved of it 
 and survive. The result was usually the death of the victims.^ Other 
 grim variations in different sections of the Continent are mwav^-drink- 
 ing in Nyassaland, reported as late as 1893, by Livingstonia missionaries 
 of the Free Church of Scotland and mentioned also in a private letter 
 from Dr. Laws, dated May 3, 1895,^ and the test of thrusting the hand 
 into boiling water. In the latter case if the skin comes off the guilt is 
 demonstrated, and the victim is then cut to pieces and burned. These 
 superstitious customs have become to such an extent a part of the 
 social code of savagery that nothing short of legal restriction backed 
 by force can uproot them, except the enlightened teachings of Chris- 
 tianity.* In the islands of the Pacific these strange and fiery ordeals 
 
 1 The Missionary Record, December, 1893, p. 354. 
 
 2 Dickie, " The Story of the Mission in Old Calabar;" p. 44. 
 
 3 " The final arbiter of veracity was the ordeal by boiling water, in some cases, 
 but most commonly by the mwavd poison (the bark of the Erythrophlceum Guineense). 
 In one tribe several hundreds of persons have been compelled to take this poison 
 at one time, and from such ' a wholesale administration from thirty to forty deaths 
 have been known to take place. Following the use of the mwav^ came quarrels over 
 property, because if the victim died, his wife, or wives, and children became the slaves 
 of the accuser, and his property also passed to him. On the other hand, if the ac- 
 cused vomited and recovered he could claim reparation from his accuser. The power 
 to put these sequelae of the ordeal into effect depended very much on the influence 
 and fighting power of the relatives, and of course bloodshed often was the result. 
 Yon can also readily imagine what an instrument of oppression the ordeal could be 
 made by a chief or powerful neighbor who had a grudge against any one, or wished 
 to get possession of his goods."— Rev. Robert Laws, M.D., D.D. (F. C. S.), Kon- 
 dowi, Livingstonia, British Central Africa. 
 
 Cf. Free Church of Scotland Monthly, September, 1893, p. 202 ; The African 
 News, January, 1894, p. 12. 
 
 * " Witchcraft and poison-drinking are a recognized part of the social fabric of 
 the Central African tribes. The main part of their legal customs is founded on these 
 two things, and a natural consequence is the degradation of the administration of jus- 
 tice into a matter of chance, or the decision of the witch doctor and the strength of 
 the poison he mixes. It is obvious that Christianity can make no truce with this sort 
 of thing, and is in duty bound not merely to refuse to recognize it, but to do everything 
 in its power to stop it, and to teach the natives by precept and example the Christian 
 law of justice."— Rev, J. S. Wimbush (U. M. C. K.\ Likoma, Nyassaland. British 
 Central Africa, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 165 
 
 have always been prevalent, but great changes havT taken place in na- 
 tive customs on many of the islands since the entrance of Christian 
 missions. 1 
 
 6. Cruel Punishments and Torture.— The just and proper 
 method of inflicting punishment upon the guilty is a subject of great 
 sociological interest, and has engaged the earnest thought and taxed the 
 practical wisdom of distinguished modern reformers. Notable changes 
 have been introduced in present-day penology, and it is one of the 
 humane triumphs of Christian civilization that the old barbarities in 
 the treatment of criminals have almost wholly disappeared within the 
 bounds of Christendom. A succinct sketch of the cruel aspects of 
 early judicial procedure, and of the processes of intimidation and tor- 
 ture which were not unknown even in the most cultured nations of the 
 world until within a recent period, is given by Dr. Frederick Howard 
 Wines in his interesting volume on the punishment of criminals.^ One 
 is impressed, in reading that harrowing record, with the immense pro- 
 gress which is manifest in the humane transformations which distinguish 
 the present system from the old. He is also, alas ! reminded that there 
 has been little improvement among the uncivilized peoples of the earth 
 in respect to these penal cruelties, since the same horrid methods of 
 inflicting punishment and torturing criminals are still practised in many 
 barbarous communities. A punishment may be pronounced cruel when 
 it is unjustly severe, or inflicts excessive suifering, or is administered 
 with barbarous torture, without legal sanction or restraint, as the whim 
 or passion of the one in authority may dictate. That all this is true of 
 much of the punishment which is practised in the non-Christian world 
 is a fact beyond question. 
 
 To begin with Western Asia, it is a notorious fact that Turkey— 
 the land which is even now the scene of such unparalleled atrocities- 
 is full of dismal cruelties to those who fall under 
 the ban of the law. This state of things pertains Methods of punishment 
 in a measure to all prisoners, but chiefly to non- '" western Asia. 
 Moslems who, perhaps most unjustly, fall under 
 penal condemnation. Turkish prisons are horrible beyond description, 
 and the treatment of prisoners is most inhuman. Shocking torture is 
 not unfrequently inflicted to extract information or to serve some secret 
 
 1 Ratzel, "The History of Mankind," vol. i., pp. 292, 451. Cf. article by 
 Andrew Lang in The Contemporary Review, August, 1896. 
 * Wines, " Punishment and Reformation,'' chaps, iv., v. 
 
166 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 purpose of the authorities. The accounts of the recent massacres in 
 Armenia, which have been spread before the world by reUable corre- 
 spondents and by official reports, reveal what Turks and Kurds are 
 capable of in the line of diaboUcal cruelty, i An incident reported by 
 Mr. Donald Mackenzie, special Commissioner of the British and Foreign 
 Anti-Slavery Society, which fell under his own observation at Hodeidah, 
 illustrates the awful possibilities of cruelty in a land of irresponsible 
 power like Arabia.' In Persia methods of punishment involving ex- 
 cruciating torture are resorted to, as illustrated articles in The New 
 York Tribune of May lo, 1896, and The Graphic (London) of August 
 15, 1896, recount in detail. The latter article, reproduced in The New 
 York Tribune of August 30th, gives an account by an eye-witness who 
 succeeded in obtaining a photograph of the scene, describing the burial 
 alive of five prisoners in a preparation of plaster of Paris, so placed as 
 to enclose the body up to the chin — a method of execution which is 
 attended with intense suffering, as the plaster soon swells, hardens, and 
 stops the circulation. In this instance the victims were selected from 
 the prisoners in the jail at Shiraz, and were put to death not because of 
 their personal guilt, but as an example to strike terror into the hearts 
 of the population and put a stop to pillage and robbery in the province, 
 the actual perpetrators of which the authorities were not able to secure. 
 The bastinado, and mutilation of the person, with other ingenious de- 
 vices for inflicting suffering, are characteristic features of penal admin- 
 istration throughout Persia.^ It is reported of the late Shah that his 
 method of punishing some obstinate subjects of his realm who tampered 
 with the telegraph-wires when they were first introduced into Persia, was 
 
 1 Consult Blue Book of the British Government, Turkey, No. 3, 1896, on the 
 condition of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey previous to the massacres ; and Bliss, 
 " Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities,'' on the massacres themselves. 
 
 2 " While at Hodeidah I saw a most revolting sight: just outside the principal 
 gate of the towrn, in a Mohammedan burial-place, I found a poor old man chained, 
 perfectly naked, exposed to the burning sun by day and dew by night, with no shed 
 or covering of any kind ; the poor fellow was quite insane. I found, from inquiries, 
 that this wretched man had been chained at this place for seventeen years ; that he 
 had been a powerful sheikh, but a more powerful one had ruined him and chained 
 him in the burial-ground near the highroad for caravans, and opposite his rival's 
 house, so that every one could see the latter's power in the country. The inhuman 
 wretch who did this farms the Customs of Hodeidah from the Turkish Government. 
 I asked our Vice-Consul how it was that such a disgraceful thing was permitted ; he 
 replied that he had made representations to his chief at Jeddah, but could not obtain 
 any satisfactory answer."— 77(^ Anti-Slavery Reporter, December, 1895, pp. ai7, 
 318. 
 
 • Wilson, " Persian Life and Customs," pp. 116, 119, 184, 185. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 167 
 
 to bury the offenders alive, one at the base of each telegraph-pole, as a 
 hint that he would allow no trifling with his administration and no 
 opposition to his will.^ In Central Asia the prisons are described as 
 inexpressibly foul, and imprisonment is apt to be attended with dismal 
 tortures."^ In Afghanistan there are characteristic cruelties of penal 
 discipline, to which reference has been made by a recent correspondent 
 of the London Times? 
 
 In India the police administration has always been characterized by 
 cruelties which even British administration has not been able wholly to 
 stamp out. In a report of the commissioners for the investigation of 
 alleged cases of torture in the Madras Presidency in 1855, the subject 
 is dealt with in considerable detail, and aggravated instances of cruelty 
 on the part of the police are brought to light.* The punishment even 
 of school-children used to be a species of torture.^ Many of the penal- 
 ties recommended in the Code of Manu are abominable in character, 
 especially those connected with violations of the proprieties of caste. 
 Under British administration a changed state of things exists, although 
 the shooting of sepoys bound at the cannon's mouth by British soldiers 
 at the time of the mutiny was siu'ely a strange lesson for a Christian 
 government to give to the people of India. 
 
 The subject of punishments in China leads us into a veritable Cham- 
 ber of Horrors, to which Mr. Norman, in his " Peoples and Politics of 
 the Far East," has devoted an entire chapter, 
 which, with its illustrations, presents a vivid pic- a Chinese chamber of 
 ture of these frightful scenes (chap. xv.). In the Horrors. 
 
 Chinese Empire these things are not done in a 
 corner, but are a recognized feature of judicial procedure. The in- 
 genuity and variety of Chinese tortures have been fully described by 
 standard writers upon the social customs of that strange empire.^ The 
 infliction of torture is not confined to the prisoner who is on trial, but 
 the unfortunate witnesses are also likely to receive the unwelcome 
 attentions of the inquisitors. There is nothing that the Chinese dread 
 more than the law itself and its administrators. Even a charge of 
 wrong-doing, however unsubstantiated, is usually a signal for a series 
 
 1 The Outlook, May 9, 1896. 
 
 2 Lansdell, " Chinese Central Asia," vol. i., pp. 55-57. SS^i vol. ii., p. 198- 
 
 3 Consult The Mail (London Times), January 22, 1896. 
 
 * Raghavaiyangar, " Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty 
 Years," Appendices, p. Ixxii. 
 
 5 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 435, 436- 
 
 « Douglas, " Society in China," pp. 71-78- Cf. Williams, " The Middle King- 
 dom," vol. i., pp. 507-515 ; Ball, " Things Chinese," p. 472- 
 
168 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of painful ordeals.^ The abominable extremities of the Chinese system 
 do not stop with actual guilt, but the relatives of one who is vuider 
 suspicion, especially if his crime is proved, are often regarded as equally 
 amenable to the law.^ Chinese executions are usually by beheading in 
 public, the execution ground being open to all. The stroke of an 
 executioner's sword is a comparatively merciful proceeding ; the pris- 
 oner may be thankful if he escapes the process of lingchi, which is being 
 cut to pieces while still alive. The prisons of China are described as 
 " loathsome, horrible dungeons, the scenes of cruelty and barbarism too 
 fearful for description." ^ In his chapter on "The Absence of Sym- 
 pathy," Rev. Arthur Smith refers to the "deUberate routine cruelty 
 with which all Chinese prisoners are treated who cannot pay for their 
 
 1 " Cruelty in various forms is shamefully tolerated. For example, their legal 
 punishments include breaking the ankles with mallets, death by starvation, the con- 
 demned being exposed for days in a wooden cage, and that in an extremely painful 
 position, and death by slicing the body of the criminal with a sword, but delaying 
 the fatal thrust. Their prisons are frightful dens. So, generally, indulgence in un- 
 governed rage leads to all manner of cruel acts, from the sickening beating of a fallen 
 animal to the choking almost to death of an offending child." — Rev. W. P. Chalfant 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Ichowfu, Shantung, China. 
 
 " The Chinese are a cruel people. Their punishments are very cruel. Men are 
 imprisoned, beaten, and tortured for slight offenses or on mere suspicion, and often 
 before any hearing of their cases. Thousands die in China every year from torture, 
 beatings, exposure in filthy prisons with insufficient food and clothes — ' done to 
 death,' accidentally or purposely. Undoubtedly a good percentage of these are in- 
 nocent of the crimes laid to their charge. Beheading is the mildest form of capital 
 punishment. Flaying alive and cutting in pieces are legal punishments for great 
 crimes."— Mrs. C. W. Mateer (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow, China. 
 
 2 " It is painful to watch the course of the law in China. Its rigor frequently 
 defeats its being carried out, and the guilty parties too often escape because the 
 innocent will have to suffer with them. It is supposed that China desires to take 
 her place beside the civilized nations of the world, but, alas ! her methods of execut- 
 ing the law in the treatment of criminals keep her among the barbarous people of the 
 earth, a place, by the way, that she richly deserves until ready to mend her ways. 
 How often do we hear of the provincial judge returning criminals to the magistrate 
 for reexamination because the criminal could not endure his brutal treatment, and 
 had confessed to anything to stop the excruciating torture— that gentle, persuasive 
 way of making a man kneel on chains until he can endure the agony no longer, and 
 faints, only to be brought to by a lighted taper stuck up his nose— crushing life out 
 and burning it in ! This is civilization with a vengeance, and yet we hear it boasted 
 that China is civilized, has a literature dating away back to the hoary past, etc. China 
 must revise her practices, for other nations have long since stamped such as barba- 
 rous, and given them up. Again, the truth is no better arrived at, but rather 
 thwarted, by the barbarity shown."— Edgar Woods, M.D. (P. B. F. M. S.). Tsing- 
 kiang-pu, China, The Missionary, July, 1896, p. 303. 
 
 » Holcombe, " The Real Chinaman," p. 205. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 169 
 
 exemption." i In the Island of Formosa substantially the same system 
 has prevailed.2 In Korea "the vocabulary of torture is sufficiently 
 copious to stamp Cho-sen as still a semi-civilized nation." The inven- 
 tory of its implements as found in a court of justice or prison is ghastly 
 in its suggestiveness.* Public executions have always been conducted 
 in brutal fashion, and are often attended with excruciating tortures of 
 the prisoners.* According to the old law of the realm, every member 
 of a man's family was equally implicated in his offense. We read of 
 the use of the rack even at the present time.^ Before we leave the 
 Continent of Asia it should be noted that the Japanese, in comparison 
 with all other Asiatic nations, stand in a favorable light so far as the 
 general«charge of cruelty is concerned. 
 
 If we turn to the Continent of Africa we enter the shadows of pure 
 savagery, and a record of barbarities meets us which is appalUng to 
 contemplate. The simple infliction of a dfeath- 
 penalty becomes a comparatively merciful punish- The cruelties of 
 
 _.,,.. . . punishment in Africa. 
 
 ment. It is well if an unfortunate prisoner escapes 
 a fate which is full of lingering agony and painful 
 mutilation. In the " Life of Livingstone " instances are given of the 
 severing of members of a living prisoner for even trifling oflEenses. The 
 use of the knife upon the living victim was often a barbarous preKm- 
 inary to his final execution. Capital punishment was resorted to as 
 a penalty for insignificant offenses. - Even speaking unadvisedly was a 
 crime for which the lips were roughly sand-papered in a way to produce 
 a painful excoriation. The sufferings of the poor slaves throughout Africa 
 make one of the most horrible chapters in human history. Of the 
 Awemba it is reported that they have a "kind of feudal system and dis- 
 cipline which is very strict, the sUghtest disobedience being punished with 
 loss of fingers or hands, eyes put out, ears and nose cut off. Often through 
 mere caprice these dreadful sufferings are inflicted, while occasionally 
 the chief kills a number of his people simply to let them know he is 
 chief and to keep them in constant fear of him." « The cruelties of 
 Lobengula have filled a large place in recent South African history. 
 Severing the nose and the ears of a victim seemed to be commonplace 
 incidents in his administration. Among the Zulus, as the banana was 
 
 1 " Chinese Characteristics," p. 214. 
 
 2 MacKay, " From Far Formosa," pp. 107, 276. 
 5 Griffis, " Corea," p. 234. 
 
 * Savage-Landor, " Corea," pp. 248-254. Cf. Norman, " Peoples and Politics 
 of the Far East," p. 348. 
 
 5 The Korean Repository, January, 1896, p. 34. 
 
 « The Free Church of Scotland Monthly, August, 1895, p. 183. 
 
170 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 set apart for royal use, if it was eaten by an ordinary person the death- 
 penalty was promptly inflicted, and the same punishment was adminis- 
 tered for theft. Thieves had their throats cut or their eyes extracted 
 or their hands and feet cut off. In the capital of Ashanti the mere 
 will of the king inflicted death for the least transgression of the most 
 whimsical laws.i Before the English missionaries entered Uganda, 
 in the days of King Mtesa, executions took place by the hundreds 
 by any method which seemed to suit the fancy of the king. Among 
 the barbarous West Coast tribes the punishment of wives by their hus- 
 bands is often cruelly painful. Among the Pondos there is a punish- 
 ment which one can hardly read of without shuddering. The victim 
 is bound or stretched upon an ant-hill from which thousands of virulent 
 ants emerge and proceed to devour him, penetrating nostrils, eyes, 
 ears, and mouth.2 But we must end this dismal recital. Enough has 
 been said to show that a reign of cruelty still lingers in the earth, and 
 that there is a pressing call for some transforming lessons from the 
 Gospel of divine mercy. 
 
 7. Brutality in War.— The awful realities of war are in many 
 instances attended by unspeakable cruelties and wild outbursts of 
 brutal passions. Civilization has, however, so far asserted itself as to 
 insist upon every possible expedient for alleviating the miseries of the 
 wounded and restraining the brutalities incident to the conflict. The 
 code governing the conduct of war is now recognized among all civi- 
 lized nations, and its humane provisions are of great value in mitigating 
 the horrors of the field, diminishing suffering, securing a proper respect 
 for prisoners and a sufficient recognition of their necessities. With all 
 that has been done, however, to lessen its brutalities, war, even in mod- 
 em times and among civilized nations, is often attended with experiences 
 which are appalling to the imagination. Even contemporary warfare is 
 not always free from the charge of unnecessary barbarity; and when 
 we consider the facilities for maiming the person and destroying life 
 which afe now in use, the question arises whether war under modern 
 conditions has, after all, to any great extent lost its ancient terrors.^ 
 
 The recent Oriental war between Japan and China, while it revealed, 
 
 1 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, January, 1896, p. 18. 
 
 8 Ibid., September, 1894, p. 368. 
 
 s Cf. u graphic article by Mr. H. W. Wilson, on " The Human Animal in 
 Battle," in The Fortnightly Review, August, 1896. See also the article " Blood- 
 thirst," in the London Spectator, September 19, 1896. 
 
THE SOCIAL JEVILS OP TtiE NON-CHRisTlAN WORLD ivi 
 
 no doubt, a strenuous and to a marked degree successful effort on the 
 part of the Japanese to banish the old traditional savagery of the Ori- 
 ent, was yet not without its dismal scenes of bru- 
 tality on the part of both combatants. With the The barbarities of 
 Japanese such scenes as were enacted at Port Oriental warfare. 
 Arthur were, however, exceptional, and no doubt 
 were stimulated by awful provocation. The improvement in present 
 Japanese methods over those which prevailed even a generation 
 or so ago reveals a remarkable readiness to adopt the modem code 
 of warfare. An incident from the letter of a resident missionary 
 will sufficiently illustrate this statement.^ The Chinese, on the other 
 hand, exhibited all the old ferocity of their race. Not only were Jap- 
 anese prisoners and wounded combatants who fell into their hands 
 made the victims of savage torture and mutilation, but even their own 
 wounded were neglected with shocking inhumanity. The spirit of 
 Chinese warfare was represented by the remark of a high official to 
 some Red Cross agents when he said, " We have no use for wounded 
 soldiers." ^ Statements still further illustrating the cold-blooded horrors 
 
 1 " Some years ago, in the course of an itinerating tour in company with a native 
 evangelist, I had occasion to pass through a district where some of the battles at the 
 time of the Restoration were fought. My companion was one of the old-time mili- 
 tary class, an intelligent, educated man, who, when he became a Christian, made 
 thorough work of it and gave himself wholly to Christ. In the war of the Restora- 
 tion he had been a petty officer on the side of the emperor. As we proceeded on our 
 tour, we halted at an inn one day at noon in the immediate neighborhood of one of 
 the old battle-fields, and, as we ate our noon meal, my companion told me about the 
 battle that had taken place there, and in which he had himself participated. He said : 
 ' Our side won the battle, and after it was over, as we held the field, we proceeded 
 to show our hatred of the enemy by despatching the wounded and mutilating the 
 bodies of the dead. We took out their entrails and decorated the trees with them ; 
 their spleens we roasted and ate.' I was shocked at the barbarity of such conduct, 
 and amazed that my companion, now such an earnest Christian, should have had a 
 part in anything so inhuman. But he assured me that it was nothing uncommon, 
 that such things were done on both sides, and little or nothing thought of them. 
 This is what Japanese soldiers did to enemies who were their own countrymen, only 
 a little more than a quarter of a century ago. What a contrast as compared with 
 the treatment accorded to Chinese prisoners in the present war!"— Rev. Thomas T. 
 Alexander (P. B. F. M. N.), Tokyo, Japan. 
 
 2 " It has always been the custom for troops on the march to plunder their own 
 people, and when prisoners were taken to torture them. At the taking of Port Arthur 
 the Japanese were angered to find their countrymen had been tortured, mutilated, 
 burned alive, etc., and in consequence they gave no quarter. China will learn much 
 from this war, and humanity to captives ought to be one of the lessons. ' We have 
 no use for wounded soldiers.,' was the answer of Sheng Tao-tai, Li Hong Chang's 
 nephew and lleatenant, when a party of Red Cross miasionaries reqaested of him 
 
172 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 .of Chinese warfare are given by Mr. Henry Norman in his "Peoples 
 and Politics of the Far East." He remarks : " It must never be for- 
 gotten that acts of appalling and almost incredible barbarity are the 
 common accompaniment of all Chinese warfare. If it were not that 
 the details are indescribable, I could give a blood-curdling list of horrors 
 that have been described to me " (p. 86). In the same volume a cor- 
 respondent of The Times is quoted as follows : " The Chinese take no 
 prisoners. From dead, wounded, and vanquished alike they shear off 
 the heads, mutilate them in various ways, and string them together by 
 a rope passed through the mouth and gullet. The Japanese troops 
 have seen these ghastly remnants of their comrades. A barrelful of 
 them was found after the fight at Ping- Yang, and among the horrible 
 trophies was the head of a young officer who had fallen wounded in a 
 fort evacuated by General Oshima's men." 
 
 Throughout Central Asia, Persia, and Turkey we find a state of 
 
 things which is in horrible rivalry with the worst that China can reveal. 
 
 The most atrocious chapter of modern history is 
 
 The annals of cruelty the recent story of Kurdish and Turkish brutality 
 
 not yet closed. .^ ^^j^ Minor. It cannot be called warfare ; it is 
 rather the brutal spirit of fiends gratifying a dia- 
 bolical passion for bloodshed and cruelty.^ The past history of India, 
 extending down even to the advent of British rule, is full of shocking 
 incidents. The barbarities of the great Afghan invasions "form one 
 of the most appalling tales of bloodshed and wanton cruelty ever 
 inflicted on the human race." Among the Rajputs it was a custom when 
 victory seemed assured to their enemies to slaughter all their women 
 rather than permit them to fall into the hands of the enemy. In the 
 siege of Chittoor by the Mohammedans it is recorded that Padmani, 
 the beautiful wife of the Rana, and all the women, to the number of 
 many thousands, were entombed in immense caves, the mouths of which 
 were closed, and all were destroyed by fires which were kindled within. 
 The supremacy of British rule has now brought India under the code 
 of modern warfare, and although the tragedy of the sepoy rebellion is 
 still fresh in the memory, and there is no guarantee beyond the authority 
 of British control that the old savagery will not reappear, yet the present 
 
 permission to go to the front to care for the wounded Chinese soldiers." — Rev. 
 Joseph S. Adams (A. B. M. U.), Hankow, Hupeh, China. 
 
 " Wlien Japanese prisoners fell into the hands of the Chinese, they cut off the- 
 heads and gouged out the eyes, and left the mutilated corpses lying in the road.'' 
 —Rev. Isaac T. Headland (M. E. M. S.), Peking, China. 
 JCf. Wilson, Persian Life and Customs," p, I2i, 
 
9 #«i^ 999 
 
 .J*t cJ^ 
 
 A Group of Pupils— Lovedale Institution (F. C, S.l. 
 
 Theological Students, Kiungani, Zanzibar. 
 (The late Bishop Smythies and Missionaries of U. M. C, A. In the centre, 
 
 Peaceful Victories in Africa. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 173 
 
 outlook is that the brutalities formerly so prevalent have vanished, never 
 to return. 
 
 In the northern States of Africa, especially in Morocco, the most 
 sanguinary customs are characteristic of Mohammedan warfare. An 
 incident recently reported in the London papers 
 gives an insight into the ghastly realitifes of war in sanguinary customs in 
 that section. A telegram announced the arrival African warfare, 
 at Fez of a large consignment of salted heads that 
 were being transported from Morocco as trophies of a recent victory. 
 It is even considered a merciful proceeding by the fierce soldiery of 
 Morocco to bury their wounded comrades before life is extinct, so that 
 the enemy may have no opportunity of mutilating their bodies.^ In 
 the recent Italian campaign with Abyssinia the hands and feet of the 
 wounded were cut off by the enemy on the field of battle, and they 
 were left to the mercy of the vultures.^ In the interior of the Continent 
 and along the West Coast there is nothing more terrible than the scenes 
 of harrowing atrocity which have been and are still incidental to barbar- 
 ous strif e.3 As we move southward there is nothing to relieve the dark 
 shadows of brutal warfare. It is a carnival of cruelty and beastly 
 savagery. The last journal of Livingstone contains an account of a 
 massacre so terrible in its atrocity that it seems to have made an over- 
 whelming impression upon his mind.* The well-known reputation of 
 the Matabele warrior has been often referred to.^ In the recent French 
 war in Madagascar even a civilized nation seems to have been deeply 
 compromised by the adoption of barbarous methods of warfare. The 
 
 1 Regions Beyond, November, 1894, p. 369. 
 
 « The Literary Digest, May 30, 1896. 
 
 3 Arnot, " Garenganze," pp. 77, 78, 92 ; The Missionary Record, October, 1893, 
 p. 286. 
 
 * Blaikie, " Life of David Livingstone," pp. 427, 428. 
 
 5 " In virar the Matabele were very cruel. They surrounded the towns against 
 which they were fighting, in the early morning, set fire to the huts, and slaughtered 
 indiscriminately, sparing only the boys and girls who could be used as slaves. Some- 
 times they made prisoners, and some of these were put to death with great cruelty, 
 dried grass being wrapped round them and set on fire. In one instance at least they 
 caught a lot of women, made them carry the spoil to the border of the country, and 
 then in cold blood murdered them all. Children are snatched out of their mothers' 
 arms and impaled on the assegai, sometimes caught by the heels and their heads 
 smashed on the rocks. Others have been tied to poles and roasted to death. I have 
 not seen these things done, but have been told of them by Matabele themselves."— 
 Rev. Charles D. Helm (L. M. S.), Hope Fountain, Matabeleland, Africa. 
 
 Cf. Wilmot, "The Expansion of South Africa," pp. 183, 184; Hepburn, 
 " Twenty Years in Khama's Country," p. 248. 
 
174 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 alliance of the bloodthirsty Sakalava with the French resulted in in- 
 discriminate massacres of women and children who fell into their hands. 
 In one case, writes the correspondent of the London Times, " there can 
 be no doubt that the Sakalava, who are well armed, murdered four 
 hundred women and children." 
 
 The savage races of the Pacific are not a whit less cruel than their 
 fellow-barbarians of the Dark Continent. In New Guinea, the New 
 Hebrides, and throughout the island realms of the South Seas, the fe- 
 rocity of savage warfare has been illustrated for unknown generations. 
 Happily, the encroachments of civilization, the spiritual victories of 
 missions, and the extension of foreign authority over so many island 
 groups of Oceania are influences which have greatly restrained the 
 barbarities that have prevailed in the past. 
 
 8. Blood Feuds.— War is not confined to nations and tribes alone, 
 but sometimes occurs between clans, communities, villages, families, and 
 even individuals, who engage in a kind of mimic warfare under the 
 name of blood feuds. These have frequently resulted in serious and 
 desperate conflicts prolonged for generations and involving intense 
 bitterness of feeling, with vindictive reprisals and cruel atrocities. The 
 causes of strife may differ; in some instances it may spring from re- 
 ligious hatred, in others it may result from trespass and violence, and 
 at times it is the outcome of family intrigue, jealousy, and enmity. 
 
 The Continent of Africa is all astir with these virulent feuds ; tribes, 
 
 communities, and families are in numberless instances pitted against 
 
 one another in irreconcilable strife. Now it is a 
 
 The prevalence and bit- . , , . , , . .,, i . , 
 
 terness of blood feuds feud between neighboring villages, which means 
 throughout the African indiscriminate war to the knife between entire com- 
 
 Continent. . , . . , , ,. 
 
 munities ; now it is a quarrel over boundary lines, 
 or a raid for plunder or retaliation for trespass and miu-der, or the 
 avenging of some insult which cannot be passed unnoticed. A constant 
 state of anarchy and bloody hostility is thus kept up among neighbor- 
 ing clans and communities. "When the Word of God came among 
 us," said a Kaffir chief in 1836, " we were hke the wild beasts ; we knew 
 nothing — nothing but war and bloodshed. Every one was against his 
 neighbor, every man tried to destroy his brother." 1 Dr. Moffat has 
 given vivid descriptions of the desperate character of the tribal feuds 
 which he found prevailing in South Africa. Lust, revenge, and rapine 
 were continually on the war-path. Throughout the length and breadth 
 * Slowan, " The Story of Our Kaffrariaa Mission," p. 109. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 175 
 
 of Zambesia raids and counter-raids, attended with savage barbarities, 
 always have been, and, where opportunity offers, are still, the constant 
 occupation of hostile tribes.i The popular theory of punishment or 
 revenge in Africa is not to seek out the guilty and inflict upon them 
 the penalty ; it is to strike an indiscriminate blow at the entire com- 
 munity or tribe to whom the offender belongs. Vengeance is sweet to 
 the native African, and under some circumstances it becomes, accord- 
 ing to his social code, an imperative duty.2 
 
 In Turkey and Persia, where national and religious distinctions honey- 
 comb society, there is hardly a village which is not ready for sectional 
 strife upon the slightest provocation. The horrors 
 in Armenia show the fearful excesses to which re- sectional feuds in Tur- 
 ligious and poHtical hostihty, when once aroused, ''^y- Persia, and India, 
 will lead. The Kurd, who vs, facile princess in his 
 fiendishness, not only dehghts in barbarities upon Christians, but is often 
 at war with his own people in local feuds.^ 
 
 1 Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," p. 183. Cf. Johnston, " Mission- 
 ary Landscapes in the Dark Continent," p. 138. 
 
 2 " Love, forgiveness— these are things which the Pahouins cannot understand, 
 nay, which even scandalize them," writes M. AUegret, from his station at Talagouga, 
 in the French Congo. " They cannot understand renouncing a vengeance, and when 
 a hostile village kills one of their people, it is not the death of their relation or their 
 friend which they feel the most, but the insult which they have received. The 
 father of one of our pupils came one day to ask that he might have his boy back for 
 a time, for, said he, ' I am growing old, and before I die I should like to tell him 
 all about our quarrels, that he may know who they are who owe us corpses. ' To for- 
 give a relation some little things, that may be allowed, but, to forgive an enemy, what 
 madness ! " — Quoted from the Journal des Missions Evangeliques, in The Missionary 
 Record, October, 1895, p. 294. 
 
 " From time immemorial the Gallas have been warriors, ready to use their spears 
 on slight provocation, and delighting in the intertribal warfare which so many of the 
 African race regard as a pastime. War has been constantly denounced by the mis- 
 sionaries, — its sin as well as its folly indicated, —and twice within the past two years 
 I have been able to dissuade the warriors from retaliatory expeditions against the 
 Somalis."— Rev. R. M. Ormerod (U. M. F. M. S.), Golbanti, Tana River, East 
 Africa. 
 
 S " As to blood fends, our mountain field is full of them. It is safe to say that 
 no man of distinction can travel freely through the different mountain provinces, and 
 until vengeance is taken any man, of whatever social standing, may be involved. 
 This is one of the great hindrances to our school work. It is at times extremely 
 difficult, and always difficult to some degree, for the boys and girls to pass through 
 these provinces on their way to us."- Miss Anna Melton (P. B. F. M. N.), Mosul, 
 Turkey. 
 
 " Blood feuds between Kurdish tribes and neighborhoods are common."— George 
 r", Raynolds, M.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), Van, Turkey. 
 
176 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In India there is perpetual hostility between Hindus and Moslems, 
 resulting in feuds which are handed down with religious fidelity from 
 generation to generation, and are always ready to break out into bloody 
 violence if some trifling cause awakens the spirit of strife. Among the 
 wild tribes of the mountains trial by combat is a favorite method of 
 settling disputes, while their blood feuds are transmitted as a sacred 
 inheritance from father to son. The unforgiving character of the Hin- 
 dus makes them cling tenaciously to the hope of revenge, and wait 
 patiently and long for their opportunity.^ In Assam murder is regarded 
 as a social accomplishment. " No young Naga," remarks The Indian 
 Witness, " is considered a man unless his hands have been imbrued in 
 the blood of his fellow-man, whether in war or in cold blood makes no 
 difference." In Burma the war of clans and even smaller communities 
 has been common.' 
 
 China is a network of clans ready to engage in hostile strife upon 
 the slightest provocation. Massacre and bloodshed are the usual re- 
 sult of these conflicts. Village feuds are common 
 among the Chinese. If they do not result in actual 
 
 ViUaee feuds In China. ,,/,,, "' , , 
 
 bloodshed they are sure to develop a system of 
 petty trespass and the destruction of the property, 
 especially the crops, of the village. In Formosa fierce and sanguinary 
 warfare, lasting sometimes for half a century, has attended these feuds 
 among savage tribes.^ The practice of head-hunting may be traced 
 back to these village and tribal wars.* The Chinese in Formosa are 
 especially the objects of hatred, and the head of a Chinaman is a trophy 
 highly prized. " No savage is esteemed," says Dr. WiUiams, " who 
 
 1 Wilkins, " Modem Hinduism," p. 410. 
 
 2 " Cut up into tribes and clans, they were always at war with one another ; that 
 is, tribe with tribe, clan with clan, and often village with village. Their quarrels 
 almost always took the form of feuds, blood feuds, and in their wars the women and 
 children suffered terribly. The object of these feuds was to seize as much property 
 and as many captives as possible. These captives were held for ransom, and were 
 cared for only to save their lives for that purpose. I never saw in these warriors 
 any impulse of pity or compassion, though there were doubtless cases. The greed 
 for gain seemed to hide all else."— Rev. Alonzo Bunker, D.D. (A. B. M. U.), 
 Toungoo, Burma. 
 
 s MacKay, " From Far Formosa," p. 222. 
 
 * " The bringing back of the head was regarded as satisfactory evidence, a kind 
 of medical certificate that the sentence of the tribe had been carried out. When 
 hostilities became fixed and certain tribes or races were regarded as unforgivable 
 enemies, a premium was put upon their heads, and the brave who showed most skill 
 was counted worthy of greatest honor and made head man of his village or chief of 
 his trihe."— Ibid., p. 268. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD Vlt 
 
 has not beheaded a Chinaman, while the greater the number of heads 
 brought home from a fray the higher the position of a brave in the 
 community." i The traditions of Japan are full of reports of conflicts 
 between the old feudal lords and their retainers, but in the present new 
 era of advancing civilization and national reconstruction these petty 
 strifes have almost entirely disappeared. A characteristic sight in Korea, 
 usually in connection with the advent of the new year, is a promiscu- 
 ous battle with clubs and stones between neighboring villages. It is 
 often in sport, but in many instances it becomes a veritable mimic 
 war.2 
 
 In New Guinea and throughout Oceania turmoil and strife are com- 
 monplace features of savage life. " Blood for blood is a sacred law 
 almost of nature wherever Christianity has not 
 prevailed." Trespass or violence on the part of intertribal feuds in the 
 any member of a tribe is regarded as fastening the P"''"^ islands, 
 guilt upon the entire tribe, and thus indiscriminate 
 bloodshed follows. The sounds of savage warfare have echoed among 
 the islands of the Pacific for unknown generations, and where the hap- 
 pier arts of peace now prevail they are almost entirely the result of 
 Christian missionary teaching and influence.^ If we penetrate in 
 almost any direction into the comparatively unknown and inaccessible 
 recesses of heathenism we will find the same shocking story of blood 
 feuds and perpetual outbursts of sanguinary hostility. An officer of a 
 prominent trading company who has lived long among the Eskimos 
 has given it as his opinion that " he did not think there was a single 
 
 1 Williams, "The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., p. 138. 
 
 " Gilmore, " Korea from its Capital," pp. 173, 176. Cf. Savage-Landor, 
 " Corea," p. 268, and The Missionary, May, 1895, p. 200. 
 
 3 " The natives of the New Hebrides, especially those in the same island, in 
 heathen days had feuds, which multiplied as the earlier inhabitants increased, and 
 were passed down from one generation to another. These feuds tended to separate 
 the natives still further, and indeed formed by far the most powerful factor in break- 
 ing them up into so many tribes ; for since Christianity has driven out heathenism, 
 the mountain barriers and the different languages have not prevented the tribes from 
 communicating with eachrDther. So great was the influence exerted by the feuds 
 and wars among the natives in separating tribe from tribe that frequently, especially 
 in Tanna, they could not, without danger to life, walk beyond a few miles from their 
 own homes. Revenge was carried from generation to generation. Every injury, 
 supposed or real, was avenged. Reviling was followed by reviling, blow by blow, 
 theft avenged by theft. The injured wife revenged the act of an unf^thful husband 
 by herself being unfaithful to him. Lite taken away was only repaid by taking away 
 another life, if not that of the murderer, at any rate that of one of his tribe."— Rc- 
 William Gnnn, M.D. (F. C. S.), Futuna, New Hebrides. 
 
178 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Eskimo frequenting that post, and who had attained thirty years of age, 
 who had not murdered a human being." i The reign of the Prince of 
 Peace is sadly needed among the warring factions of heathen society. 
 
 9. Lawlessness.— One of the noblest missions of civilization is the 
 establishment and enforcement of just and effective laws restraining 
 and punishing crimes against both the person of the individual and the 
 good order of society. The spirit of lawlessness has brought sorrow 
 and unrest to humanity during all its history, and were it not for the 
 majestic sway of law and its efficient administration there would be no 
 guarantee of security and order even in civilized communities. The 
 study of criminology within the bounds of civilization has been made a 
 specialty by expert students (e.g., Wines, Henderson, Lombroso, and 
 MacDonald), who have published the results of their investigations in 
 instructive volumes. In the wide realms of barbarism crimes of every 
 kind afflict society. The criminal is comparatively unrestrained by law, 
 and pursues his wild career with little fear of justice. There are primi- 
 tive and rude methods of punishment in vogue everywhere, and even 
 in the less civilized states of the world the administration of justice 
 would be prompt and effective were the practice equal to the theory. 
 The possibility and, in many instances, the probability that justice will 
 miscarry, combined with the allurements of lawlessness to untamed 
 natures, give a fatal stimulus to criminal instincts and make the non- 
 Christian world to a deplorable extent a prey to lawless violence. 
 
 There are many sections both of Asia and Africa that have been in 
 
 the past no:ed for disorder and misrule which are to-day under the 
 
 control of civilized governments, and are immensely 
 
 /?"•,?"'!""! "."T''. benefited by their vigorous police administration. 
 
 of civilized rule in Asia . . -^ , ° '^ 
 
 and Africa. India IS a prominent example. Crime and violence 
 
 were rampant all through the vast peninsula before 
 the advent of British rule. The native rulers themselves were arch-crim- 
 inals, and society groaned under the miseries of rapine and vicious 
 depravity.2 The terrible exploits of thugs, dacoits, and the robber 
 castes, numbering over a hundred, make a vivid chapter in Indian law- 
 lessness, which, thanks to the British Government, is now largely a thing 
 of the past. What has been said of India is true of various portions of 
 Burma, the Straits Settlements, Australasia wherever foreign rule pre- 
 
 1 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, April, 1893, p. 261. 
 
 2 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 419-436. Cf. " Is India Becoming Poorer 
 Ot Richer? " in Papers on Indiaji Social Reform, pp. 9-isj. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 179 
 
 vails, and of many islands of the Pacific, together with extensive sec- 
 tions of Africa which have come under European supervision. It is 
 impossible, of course, for a foreign power to restrain altogether the 
 forces of disorder, and it need not surprise us to hear that under British 
 as well as other European administrations the outlaws are not all cowed 
 or old habits of crime entirely eradicated. In the Straits Settlements 
 and in some districts of Burma there is unusual difficulty in breaking 
 up the haunts of outlaws and destroying their power to do evil. To 
 vast sections of the Asiatic and African world, however, it is an im- 
 mense boon to have the judicial and police administration in the hands 
 of foreign authorities. 
 
 If we turn now to the purely native governments of Asia and Africa, 
 we find that the criminal classes are allowed to prey upon society to a 
 frightful extent. The Empire of Japan, under its 
 new regime, may be regarded as a notable excep- Lawlessness under 
 tion, owing to the fact that the Japanese have a native rule, 
 
 genius for government which is not found else- 
 where in the Oriental world. They have adopted the criminal code of 
 the most advanced nations, and are proceeding to enforce it with sur- 
 prising impartiality, fidelity, and efficiency. It is to be hoped that the 
 Island of Formosa, hitherto so noted for its piracy and brigandage, with 
 all the atrocious deeds of its " Black Flags," or head-hunters, will be 
 brought, at the hands of the Japanese authorities, under effective dis- 
 cipline. This task, apparently, is taxing severely the self-restraint of the 
 Japanese officials. It is not easy for an Oriental government to break 
 at once with traditional methods of administration, especially if there 
 should be a supposed necessity for reviving them. 
 
 In China, in spite of its fierce and relentless system of dealing with 
 criminals, we find many secret organizations for the fomenting of dis- 
 order and the prosecution of lawless raids. A turbulent and reckless 
 element is ever ready for mob violence and brigandage. Clans of 
 banditti are the terror of many sections of the empire.^ Especially in 
 times of disturbance is human life unsafe, and summary execution is 
 often the result of mere suspicion.^ Chinese pirates have always had 
 a notorious reputation, and even the regular soldiers of the Government 
 are often little better than freebooters.^ The foreign residents of China 
 have had dire experiences of the treachery and cruelty of lawless mobs, 
 attended in some instances by fatal results. There is hardly a province 
 
 1 Williams, " The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 486, 487. 
 a Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," pp. 211, 212. 
 ? Graves, " Forty Years ip China," p. 114. 
 
180 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in the country which is free from desperate perils at the hands of law- 
 less marauders. The recent outrages upon missionaries in Western 
 China and the deplorable tragedy at Kucheng, not to speak of other 
 experiences of lesser moment, are still fresh in our memories. In 
 Manchuria the state of things is hardly less serious. Bands of vaga- 
 bonds link themselves together in a brotherhood of vice and engage in 
 systematic blackmail of well-to-do citizens, playing the part of burden- 
 some parasites, from whom it is impossible to obtain deliverance.i The 
 highways are beset with robber bands who attack travellers in such 
 force that resistance is hopeless. In Korea the turbulent Tonghaks 
 have recently been in open rebellion. It is a question, however, whether 
 the Government, by its oppression and tyrannical abuse of power, has 
 not justified resistance on the part of its subjects. Disorder and rob- 
 bery are, however, all too prevalent in every section of Korea, and it 
 is to be hoped that whatever change of government may occur, will be 
 in the interests of better discipline throughout the kingdom. 
 
 In Upper Burma, Assam, and Central Asia lawless deeds are of fre- 
 quent occurrence. The Afghans are for the most part untamable out- 
 laws.' In Assam deeds of blood are committed without compunction. 
 In Burma ferocious dacoity, for purposes of plunder and extortion, has 
 been practised for generations. The cruelties of the Burman dacoits 
 are phenomenal.^ The Turcomans on the eastern borders of Persia 
 have been robbers for centuries. In Persia and in the mountains of 
 Kurdistan especially there is hardly any security for life or property, 
 while in distressed Armenia an awful whirlwind of lawlessness has swept 
 away almost every vestige of seciu'ity and order. The traditional 
 attitude of Moslems towards Christians is that of insult and aggression. 
 Dr. William H. Thomson, who formerly resided in Asiatic Turkey 
 and is familiar with Eastern life, has said : " It is not safe at present to 
 travel alone for a mile's space in the Moslem world beyond the reach 
 of some Christian occupying power."* Arabia, now as of old, is a 
 
 1 The Missionary Record, October, 1893, p. 294. 
 
 2 Sir Richard Temple, " Oriental Experience," p. 320. 
 
 ' " Cruelty is one of the distinguishing traits of the Burman character. Although 
 taught the laws of the compassionate Buddha, they seem totally devoid of feeling for 
 those who may chance to become the victims of their cruelty. A band of Burman 
 dacoits knows no such feeling as pity for man or brute. While I was in Rangoon a 
 woman was brought into town with both breasts hewn off. This was done to extort 
 money. A mother was sent out to bring in her silver, and not returning imme- 
 diately, her child was wrapped in a blanket saturated with kerosene oil and roasted 
 on the spot."— Rev. F. H. Eveleth (A. B. M. U.), Sandoway, Burma. 
 
 « "Arabia— Islamandthe Eastern Qnestion,"/^a;^«''jiI/o»M()',Septemberi 1895. 
 
; 'gE THoii Faithful urn { -^ 
 DEAIH. m 1 WILL OIVE ^f^-^" 
 fflK A (ROWfl Of LIFF: "■' 
 
 Miss Hessie Newcombe (C.E.Z.M.S.) 
 
 Miss Mary A. C. Gordon (C.E.Z.M.S.) 
 
 Mrs. R. W. Stewart (C.M.S.) The Rev. R. W. Stewart (C.M.S.) 
 
 Miss Flora L. Stewart (C.E.Z.M.S.) Miss Elsie Marshall (C.E.Z.M.S.) 
 
 Miss H. E. Saunders (C.M.S) Miss E. M. Saunders, (C.M.S.) 
 
 Christian Martyrdom in China — Kucheng, August ist, 1895. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 181 
 
 land where every man's hand is against his neighbor, so that except in 
 settled localities there is no safety, even for an hour. 
 
 Africa, except as foreign control is exercised, is a favorite hunting- 
 ground of the outlaw and plunderer. Robbery is a profession ; murder 
 is a commonplace incident. From the "tiger- 
 men '■ of the West Coast through all the central Africa the haunt of 
 stretches of the Continent warfare and plunder lawless violence, 
 are the most characteristic features of savage life. 
 The Angonis and Yaos in the region of Lake Nyassa, the bloody Masai 
 east of the Victoria Nyanza, and innumerable lesser tribes and clans, 
 live in the constant practice of their hereditary tendencies to lawless 
 violence. The African rivers are often the haunts of pirates. Even 
 in those countries bordering on the Mediterranean the interior regions 
 are the scenes of violence. In Madagascar the dreaded raids of rob- 
 ber bands render much of the island unsafe. In the East Indies and 
 the Pacific Islands where European authority is not in control, native 
 life for centuries has been a gruesome record of conspiracy, murder, 
 rapine, and robbery,^ 
 
 IV.-THE SOCIAL GROUP 
 
 (Evils which are incidental to the social relationships of uncivilized communities, and 
 are due to lack of intelligence or the force of depraved habit) 
 
 The previous section brought to our attention some of the grosser 
 and more inhuman aspects of non-Christian society, such as have arisen 
 chiefly from intertribal warfare and race hostility. There remains to be 
 dealt with a cluster of evils connected with social relationships of a more 
 personal character, revealed in individual conduct and domestic habits 
 of Hfe. They are in some respects similar to those mentioned in the 
 previous group, with perhaps less of the brutal impulses of barbarism, 
 while, on the other hand, they may be said to reveal with no less pre- 
 cision the moral tone and the social temper of heathen peoples. The 
 fact, however, that they are upon a different and higher plane, and 
 more intimately identified with personal character and feehng, gives 
 them a special significance as representative of the more subtle inner 
 spirit of society. Several of the evils included in this list are not of 
 
 1 Chahners, "Pioneering in New Guinea," p. 281. Cf. Alexander, "Islands 
 of the Pacific," p. 223. 
 
182 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 a character to excite reproach so much as to inspire pity and stimu- 
 late a desire to overcome them. 
 
 I. Ignorance.— The first specification which suggests itself under 
 
 this general category is ignorance. This is rather a misfortune to be 
 
 lamented than a crime to be condemned, yet it is 
 
 The social perils none the less an evil of stupendous magnitude, the 
 '"''ignMance!^ "' fountain of a whole series of deplorable miseries and 
 social disabilities. Human life everywhere needs 
 for its wholesome development and higher progress the guidance and 
 stimulus of knowledge, the incitement of quickening ideals, and the 
 culture of refining customs. Ignorance is a blighting and depressing 
 environment, in which the higher graces of human intercourse cannot 
 be developed, and wherein the nobler life of the social man languishes, 
 while his lower and meaner tendencies are under little restraint. It 
 produces a rank growth of positive evils, which are both a peril and a 
 stigma to society. It places, moreover, a serious embargo upon indus- 
 trial enterprise, and fixes life in the old routine of antiquated methods, 
 with little hope of improvement.'* 
 
 1 " China is, I suppose, the most striking illustration of arrested development 
 in the world. The people know how to plow and sow and reap, to spin and weave 
 and dye, to extract sugar and partly refine it, to get salt by evaporation, to extract 
 oil from peanuts, to get the essence out of peas and beans ; but all these processes 
 are carried on with a crudity and laboriousness that astonishes one from the West, 
 where invention has disclosed so many hidden forces and applied them with such 
 great success. China seems to have lost the inventive gift j at least, it has lain la- 
 tent so long that nobody seems to know of its existence. The everlasting back- 
 ward look to see what the ancestors did and how they did it is unquestionably a 
 great deadener to all inventive genius."— Rev. J. G. Fagg (Ref. C. A.), Amoy, 
 China. 
 
 " Two of the greatest evils in China at present are ignorance and poverty; that 
 is, ignorance of modern science and Western improvements. To go from Peking 
 to Tientsin costs me twenty times as much time and ten times as much money as 
 would be required if I journeyed by railroad, to say nothing of the inconvenience 
 and nervous strain. The freight from Shanghai to Peking is greater than from New 
 York to Shanghai. My coal costs me twice as much as it would if transported by 
 railroad instead of on camels. Oil costs more than three times what it would if the 
 Chinese were not too superstitious to have oil-wells sunk. Millions of money are 
 spent every year on walls around cities, only to be washed down by the next year's 
 rains ; millions of days of unproductive labor are wasted simply on account of the 
 ignorance and prejudices of the people. If these poor people were led to give up 
 their prejudices, and this unproductive labor were utilized m mining and building 
 railroads, there would be no such poverty and suffering."— Rev. Isaac T. Headland 
 (M. E. M. S.), Peking, China. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WOULD 183 
 
 By ignorance in this connection we do not mean mere illiteracy, al- 
 though this is usually a prominent feature of it. We refer rather to an 
 ignorance which may be coincident with advanced 
 educational attainments in the heathen classics and ignorance not always 
 
 ,,,. , r/->-ii .• T synonymous with 
 
 m the standard literature of Oriental nations. Its illiteracy, 
 
 scope is much broader than mere mental vacuity, 
 and includes also a grievous dearth of that intellectual, moral, and so- 
 cial training which comes through contact with truth, and is a part of 
 the broader culture which scientific knowledge gives. A very learned 
 man in the scholastic lore of the Orient may be at the same time a slave 
 to the most degrading customs and a victim to the most puerile super- 
 stitions.i In India and China, for example, we find vast systems of 
 philosophy and imposing curriculums of education, but with it all an 
 obtuseness, a narrowness, a pedantry, an intensity of intellectual pride 
 combined with a pitiful emptiness of mind, which justify the charge of 
 ignorance, whatever may be the measure of attainment.^ An expert 
 analysis of the actual condition of the educated mind of China is given 
 by Dr. Martin in his "Hanlin Papers," and a more striking exhibition 
 
 1 " The great reason, perhaps, why China is stagnant is found in her ridiculous 
 system of study, which compels the student to memorize books written in a fine lit- 
 erary style, model his own writing after the impossible rules of this style, and do 
 absolutely nothing in the line of original research. Natural sciences are unknown 
 subjects to the well-read Chinese, who believe still that thunder kills men, and not 
 lightning, and that the bolt is in the control of a god and his wife. Officials still in- 
 cite the people to join in making as great a noise as possible to drive away the dragon 
 who is devouring the sun or the moon, although the Roman Catholic astronomers, 
 who were in royal favor three hundred years ago, gave China the system by which 
 she foretells when these eclipses are to come to pass, and so enables the magistrates 
 to issue a proclamation beforehand, or the people to find in almanacs the date when 
 the dragon will come."— Rev. J. C. Garritt (P. B. F. M. N.), Hangchow, China. 
 
 2 " I think of Hindustan, inhabited for ages by our own kindred, whose orna- 
 ments were sought by Solomon for his palace, whose gold brocades were in the 
 courts of imperial Rome, whose poetry, antedating the Christian era, is still read 
 and admired in Europe, without present science, history, poetry, or any recent me- 
 chanical arts, except as these have pressed in from abroad, with no geography, even 
 of native production, and no philosophy which asserts itself valid to the mind of the 
 world, constrained to import its very arguments against the religion of the New 
 Testament from the countries in which men have been stimulated and trained by that 
 religion ; I think of China, where it is said that the seat of the understanding is as- 
 signed to the stomach, but where respect for learning is almost a religion, and where 
 the assiduous cultivation of such learning is the pride of the people and the glory of 
 the throne, without epic or art, with the old-time classics still in their place, but with 
 no living literature to enlighten and discipline the mind of the people, whatever they 
 attain marked, as Frederick Schlegel said, ' with unnatural stiffness, childish vanity, 
 exaggerated refinement, in the most important provinces of thought, and the Ian- 
 
184 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of what might be called learned ignorance it would be difficult to find.i 
 There is, no doubt, even in lands where education is not unknown, 
 an astonishing degree of absolute, unmitigated illiteracy, but in large 
 sections of the non- Christian world there is this and nothing else. The 
 most remarkable exception to this statement is Japan, where educa- 
 tion is now pushed with energy, and where the Government system of 
 schools will already bear comparison with some of the nations of West- 
 ern Christendom. Even in India, according to the last census, an 
 appalling prevalence of illiteracy is revealed. Less than six per cent, 
 of the entire population can read or write, and among the women only 
 one in three hundred and thirty is able to do so. In many of the Native 
 States there are no educational facilities, and even if provided they are 
 only for the higher castes. The great mass of the population of India 
 resides in its villages, where educational privileges exist only to a very 
 limited extent. The education of India is a colossal task, which, with 
 all the facilities of the English school system and missionary institu- 
 tions, is as yet but just begun.' In Assam popular education was un- 
 known before the British occupation of the country in 1826, and. even 
 at the present time about eighty-five per cent, of the people are illiter- 
 ate. The movement for popular education all over India has only 
 begun to be felt in that land.^ 
 
 China, although one of the most ancient nations of the world, is 
 still in its infancy as regards education. The Rev. John C. Gibson, in an 
 
 essay on Bible versions, read at the Shanghai Mis- 
 Enormous percentage sionary Conference of 1 890, reckoned a total popu- 
 ofiiiiteracy in China, lation of 300,000,000, of which 75,000,000 were 
 
 children too young to read. If the remaining 
 225,000,000 of maturer years were divided equally, half being men and 
 the other half women, he estimates that of the 112,500,000 women 
 only one per cent., or 1,125,000, are able to read, and of the men ten 
 
 guage itself chiefly characterized by jejuneness and poverty;' and then I turn to the 
 lands which Christianity has filled with its Scriptures and with their unwasting, in- 
 definable impulse, and how vast is the contrast! "— Storrs, *' The Divine Origin of 
 Christianity," pp. 243, 244. 
 
 1 Martin, " Hanlin Papers ; or, Essays on the Intellectual Life of the Chinese," 
 First Series, pp. 34-50. 
 
 2 " Changes in India," by the Rev. J. Murray Mitchell, LL.D., in 77/.? Frie 
 Church of Scotland Monthly, May, 1896, pp. 101-104. Cf. also "Blue Book on 
 the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India During the Year 1894-95," 
 chap, xii., on " Education and Literature." 
 
 « " The Assamese People," by the Rev. P. H. Moore, in Tht BaMist Missim- 
 ary Review, April, 1895, pp. 121-128. 
 
Church for Lepers, Kucheng. China (C. M. S.; 
 
 Rescued (untainted) Children of Lepers, Asansol, Bengal, India (M. L.) 
 
 Women Lepers (all Christians) Mandalay (W. M.S.) Leper Children, Mandalay (W. M.S.) 
 
 Church for Lepers, Mandalay (W. M. S.) 
 
 Christian Ministr-Y to Lepers. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF' THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 185 
 
 per cent, is named as a liberal estimate, or 1 1,250,000 who are readers. 
 The result is that out of 225,000,000 only 12,375,000 are able to read. 
 Another estimate, by Dr. Martin, reduces the number of readers to about 
 6,000,000. The significance of these estimates is emphasized by a 
 comparison which Mr. Gibson makes with the percentage of readers in 
 twenty-one of the Northern States in America, which is ninety-five and 
 five tenths per cent, of the entire population over ten years of age, 
 leaving a percentage of illiteracy of only four and five tenths per cent, 
 as compared with ninety per cent, men and ninety-nine per cent, women 
 in the Chinese Empire.^ Miss Adele M. Fielde, in referring to the 
 mistaken idea, which many entertain, that education is universal among 
 the men of the Middle Kingdom, states it as her judgment that " not 
 more than one Chinese man in a hundred, taking the empire through, 
 knows how to read, and still fewer can write a letter. Of the women 
 not more than one in a thousand can read." 2 The Rev. Jonathan Lees, 
 of the London Missionary Society, who has resided thirty-five years in 
 China, coincides with these statements.' The Rev. A. H. Smith, in his 
 chapter on " Intellectual Turbidity," dwells with much emphasis upon 
 the brooding ignorance which shadows the intellectual life of China.* 
 " The Western child of ten years of age," says a writer in The Chinese 
 Recorder, "knows more about the earth, the universe, and the immu- 
 table laws of nature than the average Hanlin, or member of the Im- 
 perial Academy." 5 
 
 The eilect of all this is sadly depressing, not only to the individual, 
 
 1 " Report of Shanghai Conference, 1890," pp. 67, 68. 
 
 2 Fielde, "A Corner of Cathay," p. 94. Cf. " Hanlin Papers," First Series, 
 pp. 97, 98. 
 
 ^ " From literature it is natural to turn to the subject of popular education. 
 Strange misconceptions prevail abroad as to the educational status of the population 
 of Chma. Because there is a powerful literary class, and because the possession of 
 Confucian scholarship is honorable, being at least nominally a pre-requisite to ofificial 
 position and emolument, it has been inferred that education is general, and even that 
 there must exist something like a system of national schools. This is wholly a mis- 
 take. It is true that the knowledge of books is not confined to any class j it is true 
 also that it is prized, though not often, perhaps, simply for its own sake j but there 
 is absolutely no provision for general education. A whole half of the nation, the 
 women and girls, is almost entirely untaught. It is nothing short of pathetic to 
 visit a large village and find a congregation of fifty or sixty recent converts to Chris- 
 tianity, of whom not one can read at all. They can sing (from memory) and pray, 
 but neither rulers nor religious teachers have put within their reach the key of 
 knowledge."— Rev. Jonathan Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, China. 
 
 * Smith, "Chinese Characteristics," p. 88. 
 
 5 The Chinese Recorder, January, 1896, p. 37. 
 
100 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 but to tlie social, political, and industrial life of China. If we take into 
 consideration the incompetency of such a powerful political factor in 
 
 the empire as the Tsung-li Yamen, arising from 
 The highly educated ghger ignorance, we can discover what an incalcula- 
 "'""'offlciair'"" ble injury it is to the political life of a great empire 
 
 to be controlled by a body of men concerning whom 
 a recent correspondent of The Times, who "had the honor of discussing 
 with their Excellencies some of the burning questions of the day," re- 
 marked that " the strongest impression which I carried away with me 
 was that the whole world of thought in which the Western mind is 
 trained and lives seems to be as alien to the Chinese mind as the lan- 
 guage which we speak." i Then, as regards the incalculable damage 
 done to the industrial interests of the empire by the crass ignorance 
 and unconquerable prejudices of the people, much might be said. 
 Western methods and facilities in all departments of industrial enterprise 
 are regarded with inane suspicion and supercilious contempt. Pohtical 
 economy is quite unknown as a modern science, nor is there any gen- 
 eral recognition of the advantages of international trade and the pos- 
 sibilities of industrial enterprise. The Rev. Timothy Richard, in an 
 address before the Peking Missionary Association in October, 1895, 
 expressed the opinion that " China loses a milUon taels a day by igno- 
 rance." ^ A curious study in Chinese questions by the Rev. J. H. Hors- 
 burgh, missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Szechuan, is 
 interesting as a revelation of their remarkable capabilities in that line, 
 and also of the childish range of the information which they seek.' 
 
 In Korea substantially the same statements will hold true. It is a 
 land of undeveloped, almost untouched resources, simply because of 
 the intellectual slumber of the people and the inanity of what little 
 education they can attain.* In Formosa, where hardly any literature 
 exists except such as has been provided by the missionaries, in the 
 
 1 Correspondence of the London Times, October 9, 1895. In this same connec- 
 tion the correspondent continues as follows : " The wisdom of their sages, which is 
 the Alpha and Omega of their vaunted education, consists of unexceptionable apho- 
 risms, which have about as much influence on their actions as the excellent common- 
 places which in the days of our youth we have all copied out to improve our calig- 
 raphy, had in moulding our own characters. ■ History, geography, the achievements 
 of modern science, the lessons of political economy, the conditions which govern the 
 policy of Western States, the influence of public opinion, of the Press, of Parlia- 
 mentary institutions, are words which convey no real meaning to their ears." 
 
 2 The Chinese Recorder, January, 1896, p. 50. 
 
 ' The Church Missionary Intelligencer, July, 1895, p. 511, 
 * The Korean Repository, September, 1895, p. 349. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 187 
 
 Pacific Islands, where a similar statement would hold, in Moslem 
 landS) where education as conducted under native auspices is of practi- 
 cally little value, throughout the Continent of Af- 
 rica, in many sections of South America and the inteUectuai slumber 
 West Indies, there are deep needs arising from the of the Orient. 
 lack of educational facilities. A large part of the 
 world, in fact, may be said to be still deeply wrapped in the slumber of 
 ignorance, and, were it not for the educational efforts of foreign mis- 
 sions, there would be little hope of a speedy awakening. 
 
 2. Quackery. — Ignorance in some of its aspects may be regarded 
 as only a negative evil, but when it undertakes to practise medicine 
 and surgery it becomes a positive evil of an ag- 
 gressive and deadly character. The agonies and 3*"' ""'"""'■"f 
 
 ° ' ^^ of quackery to the 
 
 sorrows which result from the stupid and cruel world's misery, 
 inflictions of quackery upon suffering humanity 
 make an awful chapter in the daily experience of mankind. These 
 miseries have been endured for centuries, and must continue indefinitely, 
 unless scientific knowledge and competent skill take the place of the 
 wretched incompetence which now does such harm to stricken victims. 
 The vagaries of quackery would be only an interesting and curious study, 
 were it not for the serious and shocking reality of the harm involved. 
 After all, the thing to be lamented is not so much the resort to useless 
 remedies as the ignorance and credulity which make them possible. It 
 is natural for distressed humanity to seek relief from its sufferings, and 
 this gives to ignorant assumption its opportunity, and opens the way 
 for the adoption of those useless and dangerous expedients which have 
 added such an untold increment to the world's misery. 
 
 It is amazing to note the ignorance of even practitioners of wide 
 reputation in lands where no scientific medical instruction is known. 
 In China the so-called doctors are "the merest 
 empirics, and, having no fear of medical colleges xhe charlatanism of 
 or examination tests before their eyes, prey on the t*"' Chinese doctor, 
 folly and ignorance of the people without let or 
 hindrance." i With no knowledge of physiology or anatomy, patho- 
 logical diagnosis is the merest guesswork. Such a remedy as amputa- 
 tion is never, under any circumstances, thought of, since it is regarded 
 as indicating disrespect to ancestors to mutilate the body. A Chinese 
 doctor, entirely ignorant of the distinction between arteries and veins, 
 
 1 Douglas, " Society in China," p. 149. 
 
188 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 will feel the pulses of both wrists, with an idea that the beating of the 
 pulse of the left arm indicates the state of the heart, while that of the 
 right represents the health of the lungs and Uver. If these signs fail, 
 the tongue will surely yield some mystic augury concerning the nature 
 of the disease. As to remedies, they are composed of many vegetable, 
 mineral, and animal substances, some of them of the most absurd irrel- 
 evance. They are referred to in some detail by Mr. Douglas in his 
 chapter on medicine.^ A remedy of noted efficacy is the carcass of a 
 tiger. It can be used in a variety of ways and is supposed to possess 
 marvelous tonic qualities.^ There is a potent remedial power in dried 
 scorpions, and as a remedy for Asiatic cholera nothing excels a needle 
 thrust into the abdomen. In a recent report of one of the Chinese 
 hospitals of the Methodist Episcopal Mission in Central China, an ac- 
 count is given of a woman who had been sick for a long time before 
 she came for treatment, and " had eaten more than two hundred spiders, 
 and a large number of snakes' eggs, without being helped." A native 
 medical prescription in Northern China required a wife to take some 
 
 1 Douglas, " Society in China," pp. 149-159. Cf. also Graves, " Forty Years 
 in China," pp. 226-237. 
 
 " Chinese doctors profess to be able to diagnose disease by the state of the pulse 
 only. Their knowledge of anatomy and physiology is almost nil, yet in place of 
 exact knowledge they substitute the most absurd theories. To a large extent drugs 
 are unknown, and most wonderful healing properties are attributed to such substances 
 as dragons' teeth, fossils, tiger bones, pearls, etc. Moreover, superstitious notions 
 and practices control and pervert medicine. In almost every case of sickness, idols, 
 astrologers, and fortune-tellers are consulted. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, 
 medical science being in so unsatisfactory a state in China, the cures wrought by the 
 foreign doctors seem to the people little short of miraculous."— Dr. John Kenneth 
 Mackenzie (L. M. S.), quoted in " Great Missionaries of the Church," by Rev. 
 C. C. Creegan, pp. 149, 150. 
 
 2 " Just the other day a tiger that had been killed in the mountains was brought 
 into the city and sold for medicinal purposes at a sum equivalent to about fifteen 
 hundred dollars, American money. The least bit of this animal is supposed to im- 
 part wonderful vitality and strength to a sick patient. Accordingly, riot the least 
 part of the tiger is wasted; even the bones are ground up and taken as medicine. 
 Last summer a large snake was captured, sold for a fabulous sum, and served up in 
 like manner. The result of this kind of theory and practice is the illness and 
 death of thousands! where a little medical skill would relieve suffering and prevent 
 death."— Rev. G. E. Whitman (A. B. M. U.), Kayin, China, in The Baptist MU. 
 nonary Magazine, August, 1893, p. 405. 
 
 " In China tigers' bones are given to the weak and debilitated as a strengthening 
 medicine, and those who cannot afford such an expensive luxury may yet obtain 
 some of] the strength and courage of that ferocious beast by swallowing a decoction 
 of the hairs of his moustache, which are retailed at the low price of a hundred cash 
 (8K cents) a hair."— Rev. A. W. Douthwaite, M.D. (C. I. M.), Chefoo, China. 
 
mu SOCIAL EVtLi> OP THE NON-CHRIStlAN WORLD 189 
 
 of her own flesh and, having properly prepared it, to give it to her sick 
 husband to eat. The directions were heroically carried out, but with- 
 out avail. In the case of bullet wounds, prayers are written on a piece 
 of red paper, which is burned, and from its ashes medicine is made. 
 Frequent cases of blood-poisoning result from the putrid animal flesh 
 so often applied to wounds. The superstition' of the natives, and their 
 suspicions of foreign treatment, are well illustrated in a letter from the 
 Rev. C. Bennett (C. M. S.), on the plague in Hong Kong, published in 
 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, October, 1894, p. 752. Some of 
 the remedies are not only absurd, but characterized by cruel barbarity.^ 
 Dr. MacKay, in writing of Formosa, has given many interesting facts 
 bearing upon this theme,'' In a recent report of his mission hospital, an 
 account of some of the native specifics for various 
 diseases in North Formosa is given. For anaemia Native specifics in 
 is prescribed a jelly made of the bones of a savage Formosa, 
 
 recently killed. An execution of some criminal 
 will be numerously attended by practitioners to obtain the requisite 
 material for making this valuable remedy. For Asiatic cholera the 
 body is pierced with needles. For catarrh a chip is taken from some 
 cofiin after it has been let down into the grave, and boiled with other 
 ingredients, and then laid aside for future use. In case of dog bite the 
 tartar from teeth is considered an effective antidote. A dyspeptic must 
 
 1 " The doctors are, for the most part, men who have had no special preparation 
 for their work. They do very ridiculous things. Physicians have no protection by 
 law, and any one can practise, no matter how ignorant. The custom, if any one is 
 very sick, is to go to the temple and consult the idols. The latter, of course, answer 
 through the priests, and sometimes they prescribe very cruel treatment. A patient 
 came one day to the hospital, who had been made very sick by walking over hot coals 
 to cure her husband ; the idol had told her that she must do so. Another woman 
 came with her forehead badly bruised. This had been caused by knocking her 
 head on the floor before the idol, beseeching that her child might be healed. The 
 people are kind to their sick ones in many ways, but are so ignorant that they do not 
 know how to take proper care of them. It is thought very dangerous to bathe a 
 person when sick, even the hands and face, so we find patients in a very pitiful con- 
 dition sometimes. They know nothing of surgery, and there is much unnecessary 
 suffering attending childbirth on this account."— Dr. Kate C. WoodhuU (A. B. C. 
 F. M.), Foochow, China. 
 
 " Their medical practice is often barbarous. In cholera and some other diseases 
 they run needles under the nails of the fingers and toes, and into some parts of th« 
 body, as a counter-irritant. Tigers' teeth and dried scorpions are popular remedies. 
 Abscesses are carefully plastered over, lest the pus escape. Soldiers sometimes eat 
 the hearts of their enemies killed in battle to make them brave."— Mrs. C. W. Ma- 
 teer (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow, China. 
 
 * MacKay, " From Far Formosa," chap, xxxiii. 
 
190 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 be fed on dog's flesh, especially that of puppies. For ophthalmia the 
 intestines of a bedbug are applied to the eye. For rheumatism a soup 
 is made of the feet of the monkey, combined with other ingredients, 
 5uch as pork and spirituous liquors. Then there are boiled toads and 
 3ried grass, while numerous other childish nostrums are resorted to as 
 expedients for coping with the dread emergencies pf disease.^ 
 
 The Korean doctor and his methods are described in an article by 
 
 Dr. Busteed in The Korean Repository tor May, 1895. He seems to 
 
 be very fond of the needle, which he thrusts into 
 
 Sovereign remedies in the flesh as a sovereign remedy for many mala- 
 
 Korea and Tibet. (jjes. Por hydrophobia he prescribes a powder 
 made of the skull of a tiger. This is to be taken 
 internally, and a poultice of garlic applied to the bite. The bones of 
 I tiger are highly valued by the Koreans for their medicinal qualities, 
 md they are regarded as a specific for cowardice. A good strong soup 
 jf tiger bones is supposed to make a hero of the most arrant coward. 
 For general debility a Korean sufferer partakes of boiled bear's gall. 
 The loathsome character of some of the poultices applied to wounds 
 3y the native practitioner is too sickening to mention. Various diseases 
 ire supposed to have special demoniacal attendants, and in a case of 
 smallpox, for example, the principal function of a doctor is to exorcise 
 ts demon. This done, all will be well. Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall 
 |M. E. M. S.) gives an account of the visit of a Korean doctor to a sick 
 :hild. The first thing he did was to make a little pyramid of brownish- 
 ooking powder upon each breast of the child, and then to set it afire 
 mtil it burned the tender skin. This was followed by the use of a large 
 iaming-needle, which was thrust through each little foot, the palms of 
 he hands, the thumb-joints, and through the lips into the jaw just 
 seneath the nose. In some cases this species of treatment results in 
 iuppuration with fatal consequences. The Ainu of Northern Japan, 
 vhen he is sick, sends for his medicine-man, who, "falling into a sort 
 )f trance and working himself up into a kind of frenzy, tells why the 
 lisease has come and what demon has sent it." He prescribes some 
 ;harms which, if worn by the sufferer, will banish the demon and relieve 
 :he distress.^ In Tibet the favorite remedy is butter, which is rubbed 
 reely on the patient. Where this fails, as, for example, in case of small- 
 )ox, which they especially dread, they often adopt summary methods 
 md dispose of the victims either by burning them or by throwing them 
 nto rapid torrents; or perhaps they carry them to a mountain-top, 
 
 1 TAe Illustrated Missionary News, December, 1894, p, 185. 
 « Batchelor, " The Ainu of Japan," p. 197. 
 
Medical Staff and Students An Ting Hospital, Peking, China. 
 Drs. Atterbury and Taylor in centre (P. B. F M. N ; 
 
 Dr. Co'.in S Valentine and Medica. Class. Agra, N W. P.. India (.E. M. M. S.) 
 Christian MISSIO^fs Abolishing Quackery. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 191 
 
 where they leave them to recover or die. If the internal or external 
 use of butter is of no avail for ordinary illnesses, the lamas, whose 
 methods are peculiar, are summoned to the rescue. They make a life- 
 sized image of the sick person, dressing it in his or her clothes, not forget- 
 ting personal ornaments, and place it in the courtyard. They then sit 
 around this image and read passages from the sacred classics supposed 
 to be suitable for the case. A wild dance with incantations follows, 
 and this is supposed to be effective in transferring the malady from 
 the patient to his effigy. After this the effigy is burned outside the 
 village.^ 
 
 Even in lands where Western intelligence has penetrated to a con- 
 siderable extent the old tricks of quackery are still found. In India 
 sickness is often ascribed to demons or to the anger 
 of gods and goddesses, who are thought to preside Medical destitution 
 over epidemics, and who must be propitiated in in India, 
 
 order to secure their suppression. " Killed by 
 ignorance " is still the verdict in numberless cases of fatality, and when 
 we remember that the total number of deaths in India every year is 
 between five and six millions, we can appreciate how disastrous are the 
 results of quackery, which has, no doubt, been the only ministry which 
 the vast majority have received in their fatal illnesses. To be sure, the 
 old system, with its charms and incantations, its profitless and often cruel 
 remedies, is gradually passing away, yet the native hakim is the only 
 recoiu-se in the case of vast multitudes. It is estimated by Sir William 
 Moore that "not five per cent, of the population is reached by the 
 present system of medical aid." Even in the great cities, where there 
 are hospitals and dispensaries, more than half of the people die un- 
 attended in sickness either by educated doctor or native quack. " If 
 this is the case in the cities," writes Dr. Wanless, " what must be the 
 condition in the 566,000 villages, each with a population of less than 
 500, not to mention thousands of large towns with a population of from 
 1000 to 5000, without even a native doctor?"^ The difficulties at- 
 tending medical practice in India arising from the severity of the con- 
 ventional rules of society add, no doubt, to the volume of neglect to 
 which we referred. In an instructive discussion in the pages of 
 The Indian Magazine and Review for the latter part of the year 1895 
 and the eariier numbers of 1896, concerning " Medical Aid to Indian 
 Women," are to be found repeated references to the lamentable woes 
 of Indian women in times of illness and suffering, even though, as in 
 
 1 Bishop, Among the Tibetans," p. 105. 
 
 » The Student Volunteer, December, 1895, p. 47. 
 
192 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PliOGIiESS 
 
 many instances, medical aid might be available. ^ It is a question 
 whether the so-called hakims or vaidyas, with their foolish and worth, 
 less remedies, are any relief, or whether to be unattended is not a milder 
 fate than to be ministered to by those who will gravely prescribe the 
 powdered horn of the sacred bull as a remedy of special efficacy, or 
 who repeat verses out of their sacred books for the relief of a person 
 who has been bitten by a poisonous insect.^ 
 
 In Burma and eastward the reign of quackery is still the occasion 
 of numberless woes to those who might be relieved by inteUigent 
 
 medical aid in their times of distress. The singu- 
 
 B^ma"siam^Persia ^^'" ^^'^ painful custom of roasting the abdomen 
 
 and Arabia. of the mother of a new-born child is mentioned by 
 
 Dr. Thomas, of Lakawn, Laos (" Report of the 
 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions," 1895, p. 183). The same 
 Report, in the section on Persia (p. 168) mentions the case of a woman 
 who had obtained from a mullah two or three prayers written on paper. 
 Every morning she was to put one of these in a glass of water and when 
 the writing had disappeared from the paper she was to drink the water. 
 In her despair she had come to the hospital at Teheran for treatment. 
 Surgery in Persia is heroic and reminds one of the various methods of 
 
 1 " Dr. Macphail (F. C. S.) gives some startling figures as to the medical des- 
 titution of India. The Health Officer of Calcutta, Dr. Simpson, reported that dur- 
 ing the years 1886-91, out of 49,761 persons who died in that city, 31,221— more 
 than three out of every five — had no medical attendance whatever, even the most in- 
 sufficient, in their last illness. Less than one third of those who die in Calcutta are 
 attended by those who have had any training in European medical science. . . . 
 In the country districts, ' the Mofussil,' Dr. Macphail shows that an appalling 
 state of things exists. In the villages there are great multitudes diseased for life, 
 blind, lame, deaf, and dumb, because in early infancy or childhood the simplest 
 remedies were not procurable. Native medicine and surgery are often worse than 
 the disease. ' The red-hot iron is freely applied even for such trivial complaints as 
 toothache and headache, or rags dipped in oil are set on fire and applied to the body. 
 So with everything else. The cruelties in the name of surgery which Dr. Macphail 
 describes as being practised at the time of childbirth are such that he ranks them 
 with the suppressed custom of suttee. Surely here there is room for the medical 
 missionary, not in units, but in hundreds."— TJiif Church Missionary Intelligincir^ 
 November, 1893, p. 866. 
 
 2 " I have seen them repeating verses out of their sacred books to relieve a per- 
 son who had been bitten by a scorpion. They believe in the indwelling of evil 
 spirits, and when the disease— of whatever kind it may be, and especially if it con- 
 cerns the nerves— is at all persistent and refuses to yield to their absurd efforts, then 
 it is attributed to the presence of an evil spirit that must be driven out, often by the 
 most brutal treatment, that not infrequently results in driving the spirit eut of the 
 person by death. The people in these circumstances are none too anxious to call in 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 193 
 
 torture rather than of an attempt to relieve suffering.i In Arabia an 
 ingenious expedient for relieving a patient is " burning holes in the 
 body to let the disease out, branding sick children with red-hot bars, 
 chopping off wounded limbs and sealing them with boiling tar." Who 
 can doubt the dread woes of quackery when such measures as these 
 are employed? 
 
 Throughout Africa the belief in the influence of evil spirits and 
 their ever-active machinations is all-powerful. They are thought to 
 people the very atmosphere and to dwell in a 
 thousand otherwise innocent things which are The terrors of quack- 
 commonplace features of every-day environment. =''y '" Africa. 
 They are supposed to be forever busy in inflicting 
 trouble and suffering upon humanity. Some of them are good, but the 
 great majority are evil and bent upon doing harm. Sickness or disaster 
 or distress of any kind is considered due to their malign intervention. 
 There are, therefore, two classes of individuals in African communities 
 whose supposed power is either dreaded or eagerly sought. One con- 
 sists of those who are looked upon as capable of commanding the evil 
 spirits and so controlling and directing their activity. The other con- 
 sists of those who have power to banish them or render nugatory their 
 influence. They are known respectively as witches and witch-doctors, 
 although the native titles are many and various. Medical practice, 
 therefore, is almost entirely in the hands of these witch-doctors, ma- 
 gicians, diviners, medicine-men, and devil-doctors. They are usually 
 shrewd, cunning, and cruel, sometimes thoroughly demented, or it may 
 be that possibly they are in some instances actually under the awful 
 sway of demons, of whose mysterious activity in the dark realms of 
 heathenism we know little and cannot therefore dogmatize. The ser- 
 vice rendered by these weird characters, being a function which pertains 
 exclusively to them, and consisting, according to native ideas, of an 
 actual conflict with malign spirits, whose brooding terror rests upon 
 every heart, is considered as of special value and regarded with rever- 
 ential awe. The reign of such an awful delusion in the innermost 
 consciousness of ignorant creatures is fearful to contemplate. We who 
 live in the freedom of enlightenment can hardly imagine the dread 
 alarms of a life supposed to be in actual contact with demons, exposed 
 
 their native doctors if they can treat the person themselves. They have a few sim- 
 ple remedies virhich they fall back upon, but to a large extent they depend upon opium 
 for all forms of disease. It at any rate removes the pain, which is all that they hope 
 for."— Rev. John Wilkie (C. P. M.), Indore, India. 
 
 I Medical Mission Quarterly (C. M. S.), January, 1896, p. 8 
 
194 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to their whims and spites, their deadly anger, and their cruel malignity.i 
 What an opportunity does all this offer for a species of demoniacal 
 blackmail, and what power is given to one whose ministry is supposed 
 to be an effective remedy for all the sorrows and woes of life! It is 
 no wonder that they turn in their ignorance to one who is regarded as 
 possessing the power to deliver and defend them in the desperate 
 emergencies in which they find themselves. 
 
 The Rev. R. F. Acland Hood, in a few " Notes on Witchcraft," 
 published in Central Africa, March, 1895, has described some of the 
 
 methods by which the supposed presence of witch- 
 The demoniacal arts Craft is discovered, and the remedies which a 
 of the witch-doctor, witch-doctor will apply for the relief of his patients. 
 
 " To begin with," he remarks, " there are two 
 classes of spiritual practitioners, which we are constantly meeting in 
 African books of travel as the ' witches ' and the ' witch-doctors.' The 
 witches, or wachani, are the people (men and women) who know how 
 to make and to use medicines and charms {uchani). If any one wishes 
 to make use of uchani he will first go to a wachani and persuade him 
 by gift to let him have the uchani which he requires. No one, at least 
 here, wishes to use uchani except for the purpose of harming another. 
 If any one is more prosperous than his neighbors, or if he is merely 
 conceited, then let him look out, as he is sure to be bewitched. Uchani 
 is generally practised at night ; then the wachani go about, when every 
 
 1 " The darkest feature in popular life appears in their bondage to superstitious 
 fears, cunning diviners, and witchcraft. They live in the midst of an invisible world 
 of spiritual beings influencing for good or evil, but chiefly the latter. Shades of de- 
 parted relatives are their gods (if they have any), to whom they render worship. 
 Serpents are the representatives of the spirits among most tribes, but the Matabele 
 regard crocodiles as such and therefore never kill them. Certain individuals of both 
 sexes act as media, or priests, by whose agency they communicate with the spirit 
 world or the lower regions. The principal name by which they are designated in 
 Zululand is izanusi, literally ' smellers out.' Before discharging their official func- 
 tions they study a year or two in the school of African prophets, clothe themselves 
 with the stins of serpents and wild beasts, attach to their heads bladders of birds 
 and small animals, tie about their necks dried roots, the claws of lions and panthers, 
 the teeth of crocodiles, and also fasten a leopard's skin about the loins, frequenting 
 desert places and talking to the moon until they become semi-lunatics. Then they 
 begin their divinations, which are essentially the same in all parts of Africa, the na- 
 tives beating the ground with canes, while the ' spirit-doctors ' shout ' Yizwa! yizwa! ' 
 (' Hear! hearl') until the spirit is called up from below to designate some one pres- 
 ent as a witch or poisoner. The condition of the poor victim thus ' smeJ"; out ' is 
 perilous in the extreme. He is generally killed at once and his body given to the 
 jackals and vultures."—" Kaffir Customs," by the Rev. Josiah Tyler, in Illustrated 
 Africa, December, 1895. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 195 
 
 one is in bed. They call to one another, but no one except the spe- 
 cially gifted can hear them. Perhaps they will go in a body to the house 
 of the person to be bewitched. They go naked, and no one can see 
 them. Before they enter the house they wrest open the door and throw 
 some powdered stuff on the fire, which ensures the man's sleeping; 
 then they enter. If the man has been cautious he will have provided 
 himself with a charm to hold in his hand while he sleeps, and then 
 when the wachani come he will awake. As the wachani see him wake 
 they will beseech him not to tell any one of their coming and will offer him 
 large presents to be silent. It is believed that either if he accepts their 
 presents or if he tells the chief the wachani will kill him, but if he refuses 
 the presents and keeps silence he is safe." There are various other 
 methods of accomplishing the purpose of bewitching an enemy, but 
 when this is achieved the universal recourse is to the specialists, who 
 are supposed to be able to cope with the situation. Upon this subject 
 the same author remarks : " Now comes the remedy for witchcraft, 
 which brings in the witch-doctor. But the witch-doctor is called in for 
 everything — not only when a person is bewitched, but when any acci- 
 dent occurs, or if crops fail, or if war is imminent, in fact, in all emer- 
 gencies. The stock in trade of a witch-doctor is a set of gourds, or 
 horns, or in these days bottles with different medicines in them, which 
 are not ' taken,' but only consulted, and a skin of some small animal, often 
 a squirrel, which is stuffed with uchani. In the eyeholes are sewn two 
 beads. This stuffed skin is generally held by the tail, and is supposed 
 to answer questions put to it by standing up, nodding, etc. When a 
 person wishes to consult a witch-doctor, he will first find out which of 
 them has the best chisango, as their divining instruments are called. 
 Let us suppose him to be going to inquire why his child is ill and what 
 he should do to ensure recovery ; the first thing for him to ascertain is 
 whether the witch-doctor has a good chisango ; so he will at first try 
 to deceive him. ' My brother was wounded by a leopard out hunting, 
 and we want to know why it happened.' Then the witch-doctor con- 
 sults his chisango and says, ' No, you haven't come for that reason.' 
 ' A herd of wild boars has been rooting up the crops in my farm, and I 
 want to know how to stop them.' And so he goes on until he mentions 
 the real cause of his visit. In case the witch-doctor is taken in by any 
 of these stories, the man goes off without paying anything, and makes 
 it known that so-and-so's chisango is of no use ; but when the witch- 
 doctor is correct, he is asked to ' prescribe.' " 
 
 The above description represents the modus operandi in merely one 
 section of Africa, and chiefly in connection with a single tribe on the 
 
196 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 borders of Lake Nyassa. The customs vary in different localities, 
 and there may be said to be innumerable expedients which are in 
 
 use in the practice of these masters of the black 
 
 Burning remedies and ^'t. We have here to do rather with their reme- 
 
 liery tonica. (jjes, which are sufficiently wonderful and terrible, i 
 
 The red-hot iron is often resorted to and applied 
 freely to the quivering flesh of the patient. Burning under various de- 
 vices is a supposed cure for many distresses. They cut and slash the 
 flesh and rub irritating and painful medicine into the open wounds. It 
 is indeed hardly possible to mention in detail the many absurdly futile 
 ways in which they seek to accomplish their purpose. Another popular 
 function of the medicine-man is administering some mysterious tonic to 
 the warriors on the eve of battle. It is usually the preliminary to some 
 military expedition. When an army is thus called to " eat medicine," 
 some secret concoction by a medicine-man is administered to the war- 
 riors with as much formality as attends the reading of an official address 
 to a European army. Unhappily, the ceremonies are often attended 
 with human sacrifice. In addition, animals are slaughtered, the right 
 fore leg being torn off while alive. This must be done without the use 
 of knife or other utensil, by sheer wrenching of native hands. What 
 then happens in connection with these mysterious ceremonies has been 
 described by Dr. Liengme, a Swiss missionary located in the vicinity 
 of Delagoa Bay.^ A similar military rite is described by a correspon- 
 dent of The il/a// (London Times), April 8, 1896, as falling under his 
 observation in Swaziland. "This concoction, when duly finished," he 
 writes, "is administered to the would-be warrior, and so great is its 
 
 i Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," pp. 14, 15. 
 
 2 " The ox, bellowing and bleeding, staggers away on three legs, amid the im- 
 mense shouting of all spectators. After some twenty minutes or more the ox is 
 thrust through with a spear and its misery ended. Then the leg of the ox, the ' un- 
 known ' medicines from within the king's hut, etc., are brought out and thoroughly 
 ■mixed in large pots suitable for the purpose, and after this every soldier in the entire 
 army marches up and drinks or swallows his portion out of the general dish. Dr. 
 Liengme'.'stated that into the pots which he himself examined there had been thrown 
 pieces of human flesh, bones, and hair in quantity sufficient to be easily recog- 
 nizable ; nor would a physician and a surgeon in large daily practice be easily de- 
 ceived. After eating the concoction the soldiers hastened with speed to the little 
 river near by, where, owing to the peculiar composition of the medicine, every mor- 
 tal fear was vehemently eructed, and nothing but bravest of brave courage remained. 
 Then they were ready to attack anything, lion or Portuguese, no matter what— they 
 must dip their spears in blood. So bloodthirsty do they become (owing to having 
 worked themselves into a frenzy) that often they attack each oi)xeT."—Illustrttttd 
 Africa, September, 1895, p. 3, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 197 
 
 supposed power that the very minutest dose makes the tsi buts, or young 
 soldier, invulnerable, and casts a spell over his enemies, delivering them 
 into his hands and assuring him victory on all occasions." Facts like 
 these only serve to illustrate that quackery has a far wider scope in 
 Africa than elsewhere and is not confined merely to medical practice. 
 In Madagascar substantially the same malign reign of the witch-doctor 
 prevails.! 
 
 In the Pacific Islands the subtle power of the charms and incanta- 
 tions of the sorcerer is a commonplace of native experience.* The 
 anger of the spirits is a daily dread, and the expe- 
 dients adopted in illness are with a view to placat- xhe sorcerer's art in 
 ing the spirits rather than relieving the patient, the Pacific islands. 
 " Natives never believe in being sick," writes the 
 Rev. James Chalmers, "from anything but spiritual causes, and consider 
 that death, unless by murder, can take place from nothing but the wrath 
 of the spirits. When there is sickness in a family, all the relatives begin 
 to wonder what it means. The sick person getting no better, they 
 conclude something must be done. A present is given ; perhaps food 
 is taken and placed on the sacred place, then removed and divided 
 among friends. The invalid still being no better, a pig is taken on to 
 the sacred place and there speared and presented to the spirits ; it is 
 then returned and divided to be eaten. When death comes, great is 
 the mourning, and the cause, if not already known, is still inquired into. 
 It may have been breaking some taboo or doing something the spirits 
 did not like. Soon the body must be buried, and generally a grave is 
 dug under the house. The older women of the family stand in the 
 grave and receive the body, holding it in their hands if a child, or 
 laying it on one side if heavy, saying, ' O great Spirit, you have been 
 angry with us. We presented you with food, and that did not satisfy. 
 We gave a pig, and still that did not satisfy. You have in your wrath 
 taken this. Let that suffice your wrath, and take no more.' The body 
 is thus placed in the grave and buried." * 
 
 Among the Indians of North and South America the same terrible 
 superstitions prevail with reference to the causes and remedies of sim- 
 ple illnesses.* Is it not apparent that if Christian missions had no other 
 
 1 The Medical Missionaty Record, October, 1894, p. 210. 
 
 2 Alexander, " Islands of the Pacific," pp. 154, 155. • Paton, " Autobiography," 
 part ii., p. 135. 
 
 ' Chalmers, " Pioneering in New Guinea," pp. 329, 330. 
 * Josa, " The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana : A Memoir of the Life and Labours 
 of the Rev, W, H. Brett," pp. 38, 39 ; The South American Missionary Magazine, 
 
198 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 function than to introduce the resources of enUghtened medical science 
 among these victims of the wretched delusions of ignorant quackery 
 throughout the world, there would still be a noble mission and an im- 
 perative call for the humane messengers of truth? 
 
 3. Witchcraft. — This subject in its relations to medical practice 
 has been referred to in the previous section. The witch-doctor, or 
 medicine-man, in his well-known r61e as the 
 The spell of demons in " smeller out " or " smiter " of evil spirits, depends 
 pagan realms. upon witchcraft as a powerful adjunct in the prac- 
 tice of quackery. He is believed to be the master of 
 all the powers of evil, and able to deliver victims from those diseases 
 and sufferings which are supposed to be produced by malignant spirits. 
 In the present section we shall refer to witchcraft as connected with 
 demonology and occultism. It is indeed a black art and has a fearful 
 sway over the imaginations of those who, through ignorance or domi- 
 nant credulity, fall under its spell. It prevails to an amazing extent 
 throughout the superstitious Orient and in the pagan realms of fetichism 
 and nature-worship. Wherever it exists it casts a dismal shadow over 
 life, gives a grim and sombre aspect to nature, and turns the common- 
 place sequences of human experience into terrifying signs of the presence 
 and malign activity of some mysterious and implacable enemy.^ The 
 whole realm of occultism is a favorite camping-ground of the Oriental 
 imagination. The vague lore of Asiatic and African nations is full of 
 the mystic and gruesome enchantments of witchcraft. The true de- 
 liverance from the dominion of these wretched delusions is through the 
 entrance into the mind of that truth which can " make us free " from 
 superstition. Healthful and joyous mental vision comes through spirit- 
 ual companionship with Him who is able to save from all the powers 
 of evil, who has Himself conquered them, and can give even the most 
 ignorant mind grace and wisdom to gain a like victory. 
 
 Witchcraft has haunted savage life in all sections of the earth, but 
 its great stronghold in its grosser forms is Africa, where it exerts a truly 
 terrible power in the domestic, social, and even political life of the 
 people.' Its vagaries are innumerable. Where it holds sway it per- 
 
 January, 1894, p. 12; November, 1895, p. 183; The Gospel in all Lands, '^vi\.y, 
 1894, p. 303; The Mission Field (S. P. G.), March, 1895, pp. 84-88. 
 
 1 Macdonald, " Religion and Myth," chap, vii., on " Witchcraft " ; Ratzel," The 
 History of Mankind," vol. i., pp. 54, 55. 
 
 2 " This class [witch-doctors] have alvirays been at the beck and call of the 
 chiefs. As soon as any man without much power in the tribe became rich, he was 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 199 
 
 vades all human experience, and curses with its blighting touch the 
 whole routine ^of life. It is an ever ready instrument of persecution 
 and revenge, and at any moment may become a 
 swift and fatal weapon in the hands of suspicion. 
 
 , , . , , . , Haunted Africa. 
 
 It is often made an engme of torture, and m the 
 service of impostors is an unfailing agency of ex- 
 tortion. It has had a momentous part to play in politics and war, and 
 has been the favorite tool of savage despots. There are chapters still 
 fresh in the history of Western nations which reveal the ungovernable 
 and resistless power of its delusions even among those who have had 
 the advantages of enlightenment and civilization,^ and we can well 
 imagine what must be the cruel records of its sway among those whose 
 minds are darkened and pervaded by superstitious fears. Throughout 
 the West Coast of the African Continent the arts of witchcraft are 
 prevalent. It is supposed by some of the native tribes that a man may 
 turn himself into an animal and in that form may injure his enemy. At 
 Port Lokkoh, as reported by Bishop Ingham, of Sierra Leone, a man 
 was burned in 1854 for having, as it was thought, changed himself into 
 a leopard.2 Among the Bule of West Africa, east of Batanga, the 
 master in the arts of witchcraft is known as ngee. He is supposed to 
 be able to kill or cure at will and to have command of all the secret 
 forces of the spirit world. Even to look upon this incarnate terror is 
 beheved to cause death, and when he enters an African village all the 
 women and children and uninitiated men flee as for their lives. He 
 exercises his authority at will over his victims.' Dr. John Leighton 
 Wilson, formerly a missionary in Africa, and the author of "Western 
 Africa: Its History, Condition, and Prospects," a volume which was 
 pronounced by Dr. Livingstone to be the best book ever written on 
 that part of Africa, has given in a brief paragraph the results of his 
 observation.* 
 
 a marked man. The chief was almost certain to set the witch-doctors after him. 
 They brought a charge of witchcraft against him, and he was stripped of his all, and 
 was fortunate if he escaped with his life. From the first the chiefs saw that Chris- 
 tianity was fatal to this part of their power, and they have therefore been its most 
 bitter and steady opponents."— Rev. Brownlee J. Ross (F. C. S.), Cunningham, 
 Transkei, South Africa. 
 
 1 Drake, " The Witchcraft Delusion in New England ; " Lang, " Cock Lane and 
 Common Sense : A Series of Essays." Cf. also article on " Witchcraft " in " Cham- 
 bers's Encyclopsedia," new edition. 
 
 2 Ingham, " Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years," p. 272. 
 
 3 The Missionary Review of the World, May, 1895, p. 363. 
 
 * " Witchcraft is a prominent and leading superstition among all the races of 
 Africa, and may be regarded as one of the heaviest curses which rest upon that be- 
 
200 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Concerning its prevalence in Central Africa, the Rev. J. S. Wim- 
 
 bush, of- the Universities' Mission, writes : " The practical religion of 
 
 the natives may be summed up in the word witch- 
 
 witchcraft as a craft. Theit belief in the supernatural seems to 
 religion. comc out especially in times of calamity of any 
 
 kind, as war, sickness, famine, or pestilence. They 
 attribute it to the power of an evil spirit, but also believe that some 
 person among themselves has induced or caused the evil spirit to send 
 it. Having fixed on some person or persons by the help of a wizard 
 or witch-doctor, the accused have to establish their innocence by drink- 
 ing poison. If they vomit the poison they are no worse, as they have 
 stood the ordeal and are considered innocent. If the poison kills them, 
 they are considered guilty and deserving of death." Among the Ma- 
 shonas, the Matabele, and the Kaffirs the belief in witchcraft is universal.^ 
 So powerful has been its influence among the South African tribes that 
 it has been an historical factor of considerable influence in occasion- 
 ing war and regulating the attitude of the native tribes to European 
 administration. Wilmot, in his " Expansion of South Africa," gives an 
 account of a disaster in 1857, when, through the medium of witchcraft, 
 the Kaffirs were induced to destroy their cattle as an expedient for 
 defeating the British. The result, as stated in Mr. Wilmot's volume, 
 was the death from starvation of seventy thousand natives.^ The 
 
 nighted land. A person endowed with this mysterious art is supposed to possess 
 little less than omnipotence. By his magical arts he can keep back the showers and 
 fill the land with want and distress. Sickness, poverty, insanity, and almost every 
 evil incident to human life are ascribed to its agency. Any man is liable to be 
 charged with it. Every death which occurs in the community is ascribed to witch- 
 craft, and some one consequently is guilty of the wicked deed. The priesthood go 
 o work to find out the guilty person. It may be a brother, a sister, a father ; there 
 is no effectual shield against suspicion. Age, the ties of relationship, official 
 prominence, and general benevolence of character are alike unavailing." — Du Bose, 
 " Memoirs of Rev. John Leighton Wilson, D.D.," p. 201. 
 
 1 " The Matabele are great believers in witchcraft, and while the late chief 
 Lobengula was still in power the number of people killed every year was almost 
 incredible. Sometimes whole villages were destroyed, men, women, and children. 
 Every misfortune was attributed to witchcraft, and almost every sickness." — Rev. 
 Charles D. Helm (L. M. S.), Hope Fountain, Matabeleland, Africa. 
 
 Cf. Carnegie, "Among the Matabele," chap, iii., on " Witchcraft and Rain- 
 Making." 
 
 2 Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," pp. 11, 12. In this connection 
 the same author remarks : " Nothing more devilishly cruel than witchcraft exists in 
 the world. A rapacious chief, with equally rapacious counsellors, covets the herds 
 and wives of a wealthy man. As a means to obtain possession of them, ' smelling 
 out ' by a witch-doctor is resorted to. The victim is charged with having cause(? 
 
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THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 201 
 
 Government of Cape Colony has found it so difficult to overcome the 
 subtle and all-powerful thrall of witchcraft that a Bill has been intro- 
 duced quite recently in the Legislative Council for the effective sup- 
 pression of its influence. It is known as " The Witchcraft Suppression 
 Act, 1895," and is truly in the interest not only of good government, 
 but of native progress and enlightenment.^ 
 
 Still another stronghold of sorcery is among the Negroes of the 
 West Indies, where what is known as obeahism has for many genera- 
 tions exercised a potent sway over the imagination. 
 It is a species of witchcraft by which a malign or xhe malign power 
 blighting spell is supposed to rest upon the victim <>' obeahism. 
 
 through the instrumentaUty of an odeaA man or 
 woman. So powerful is the delusion that the person who has been 
 selected seems incapable of resisting the spell, and is either smitten with 
 some secret disease or pines away until death. The obeah thus becomes 
 
 some illness or disaster by means of incantations. In vain the unfortunate man begs 
 for death. This is never granted until for many hours, generally for days, he has 
 been subjected to the most inhuman and revolting tortures. From this Europeans 
 have saved the natives, and civilisation can plead that if this alone were the result 
 of its progress it would be more than sufficient for its justification." — Ibid., 
 pp. 12, 13. 
 
 1 The following is the full text of the Bill : 
 
 " Be it enacted by the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, by and with the advice 
 and consent of the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly thereof, as follows : 
 
 " I. Whoever imputes to any other person the use of non-natural means in caus- 
 ing any disease in any person or animal, or in causing any injury to any person or 
 property, that is to say, whoever names or indicates any other person as being a 
 wizard or witch (in the Kaffir language Umtakatt), shall, on conviction, be liable to 
 a fine not exceeding two pounds sterling, or in default of payment to imprisonment, 
 with or without hard labour, for a period not exceeding fourteen days, unless such fine 
 be sooner paid. 
 
 " 2. Whoever, having so named or indicated any person as wizard or witch as 
 aforesaid, shall be proved at his trial under the last preceding section to be by habit 
 and repute a witch-doctor or witch-finder (in the Kaffir language Isanusi) shall be 
 liable, on conviction, in lieu of the punishment provided by the last preceding sec- 
 tion, to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or to imprisonment, with or without hard 
 labour, for any term not exceeding two years, or to corporal punishment not exceeding 
 thirty-six lashes, or to any two or more of such punishments. 
 
 " 3. Whoever employs or solicits any such witch-doctor or witch-finder as afore- 
 said, so to name or indicate any person as wizard or witch as aforesaid, shall be 
 hable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding five pounds, and in default of payment 
 to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two months, 
 unless such fine be sooner paid. 
 
 " 4. Whoever professes a knowledge of so-called witchcraft or of the use of 
 charms, either as a witch-doctor or witch-finder, and shall advise or undertake to 
 
202 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 a secret agency for working injury and blighting the life of its victim. 
 In his volume entitled "Cruising Among the Caribbees," Dr. C. A. 
 Stoddard has devoted an interesting chapter to this subject.^ Obeahism 
 has been very prevalent in Jamaica and in other West Indian islands.^ 
 So serious, moreover, were the effects of these superstitious practices 
 that severe laws have been passed against them, the penalty in some 
 instances being death ; yet so deeply rooted were they in the credulity 
 of the people that no legislation has been able to prevent the secret 
 resort to this dismal art. In the islands of the Pacific similar delusions 
 have prevailed. This has been notably the case in Hawaii, and even 
 at the present time many natives are under the sway of sorcery. By 
 the instrumentality of a kahuna, or witch, a person is supposed to be 
 able to produce the death of an enemy, and even the advent of the 
 " white doctor " has not been able wholly to deliver the native mind 
 from the power of these impostors, as has been illustrated during the 
 recent visitation of Asiatic cholera.^ 
 
 The Rev. William Wyatt Gill, in his " Life in the Southern Isles," re- 
 ports a curious device known as a "soul-trap," which he discovered 
 
 among the so-called "sacred men" of Danger 
 
 Soul-hunting in the Island. By means of this trap the sorcerer was 
 
 South Seas. supposed to be able actually to obtain possession 
 
 of the soul, which when once entangled in its 
 meshes could be hurried off to the shades of the spirit world and served 
 up as a dainty morsel at a mystic feast of spiritual cannibalism. " It 
 
 advise any person applying to him how to bewitch or injure any other person or any 
 property, including animals, and any person who shall supply any other person with 
 the pretended means of witchcraft, shall, on conviction, be liable to the punishments 
 provided by section two of this Act. 
 
 " 5. Whoever, on the advice of a witch-doctor or witch-finder, or in the exercise 
 of any pretended knowledge of witchcraft or of the use of charms, shall use or cause 
 to be put into operation such means or processes as he may have been advised or 
 may believe to be cultivated to injure any other person or any property, including 
 animals, shall be liable, on conviction, to the punishments provided by section two 
 of this Act. 
 
 " 6. This Act shall take effect in any district of this Colony on and after any date 
 not earlier than the first day of September, 1895, which may be fixed by any Proc- 
 lamation extending the operation of this Act to such district. 
 
 " 7. This Act may be cited as ' The Witchcraft Suppression Act, 1895.' " 
 
 1 Cf. also" Witchcraft in the Caribbees, "in TheNew York Observer, May 9, 1895. 
 
 2 " Jamaica Enslaved and Free," pp. 125-131 ; Work and Workers in the Mission 
 Field, April, 1896, p. 164. 
 
 ' " Asiatic Cholera among Hawaiians," by the Rev. S. E. Bishop, in The Inde- 
 pendent, September 26, 1895. Cf. also an article on " Witch-Doctors in Hawaii," 
 published in The New York Tribune, June ai, 1895. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 203 
 
 would then be speedily known throughout the island world that so-and- 
 so had lost his soul, and great would be the lamentation." The sorcerer 
 must thereupon be propitiated by elaborate offerings, and every effort 
 made to induce him to restore the captured soul. This was often ac- 
 complished, but sometimes it was pronounced impossible. The soulless 
 victim would then give himself up to despair and fall a prey to such 
 profound mental distress that he would eventually die.i In New Guinea 
 and the New Hebrides we have accounts of similar uses of sorcery, or 
 witchcraft, for the same base designs. Their sorcerers would claim the 
 power of life and death, health and sickness, and seem to find Uttle 
 difficulty in exercising it. The black art known as nahak is reported 
 by Dr. Paton to be the cause of most of the bloodshed and terror upon 
 Tanna.2 In " Cannibals Won for Christ," by the Rev. Oscar Michel- 
 sen, the author writes concerning Tongoa, of the New Hebrides group : 
 " Every village had its sacred man, who was sometimes a chief. He 
 undertook many functions, sacrificing to the spirits to avert their anger 
 on behalf of sick persons, and practising kaimasi (a kind of witchcraft) 
 to compass the evil or bring about the death of obnoxious individuals " 
 (p. 119). 
 
 Even in the more civilized countries of the Orient we find a lively 
 belief in the arts of witchcraft. So impressive have been the evidences 
 of demon possession in China that a distinguished 
 missionary, after a residence of forty years in that Bsi'ef '° demon pos- 
 
 session among Asiatic 
 
 empire, has written a large volume upon Demon peoples. 
 
 Possession and Allied Themes," chiefly based upon 
 what he has observed among the Chinese, and upon information which 
 he has gathered from India, Japan, and other lands.^ The evidence 
 which he brings forward in support of the theory of the actual fact of 
 demon possession in China is sufficiently starding and curious, what- 
 ever may be the correct interpretation of it. Unhappily, the victims 
 of supposed possession are often treated with shocking barbarity, cases 
 of which are mentioned by Dr. Christie.* At all events, the Chinese 
 are profoundly under the influence of the system known a.s fung-shui, 
 which, although regarded as a capital crime according to the Sacred 
 Edict, is one of the mightiest forces in the social life of the people.^ 
 
 1 Gill, " Life in the Southern Isles," pp. 180-183. Cf. Ratzel, "The History 
 of Mankind," vol. i., p. 47. 
 
 2 Paton, " Autobiography," part i.", p. 227. 
 
 3 Nevius, " Demon Possession and Allied Themes." 
 * Christie, " Ten Years in Manchuria," p. 86. 
 
 5 Moule, " New China and Old," p. 231 ; Martin, " A Cycle of Cathay," p. 41- 
 
204 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The profession of fortune-teller is common, and the constant consulta- 
 tion of these diviners is a favorite expedient of the people.^ In Japan 
 the belief in demon possession is found among the Ainu.^ In Korea 
 the exorcism of spirits has the dignity of a profession.^ In India, espe- 
 cially in the Native States, a considerable belief in witchcraft still pre- 
 vails, although throughout the peninsula as a whole severe restraint is 
 put upon all cases. In Siam and Laos the usual resort in the event of 
 sickness is to the spirit-doctor, that through him it may be ascertained 
 whose spirit it is that is causing the trouble. The unfortunate victim 
 of illness is often punished unmercifully to compel him to tell who it is 
 that is the author of his affliction. If in his delirium or excitement 
 some name is mentioned, possibly that of his best friend, the evidence 
 is regarded as sufficient, and the culprit is warned that he must flee for 
 his life.* It is unnecessary, however, to give further instances of the 
 melancholy sway of these spiritual delusions and the piercing sorrows 
 that they bring to their superstitious victims. 
 
 1 Williams, "The Middle Kingdom," vol. ii., pp. 260 ff. 
 
 " No people are more enslaved by fear of the unknown than the Chinese, and 
 none resort more frequently to sortilege to ascertain whether an enterprise will be 
 successful or a proposed remedy avail to cure. This desire actuates all classes, and 
 thousands and myriads of persons take advantage of it to their own profit. The 
 tables of fortune-tellers and the shops of geomancers are met at street corners, and 
 a strong inducement to repair to the temples is to cast lots as to the success of the 
 prayers offered." — Ibid., p. 260. 
 
 Cf. also" Sorcery in the Celestial Empire, "in The Literary Digest, ^vms^, 1894. 
 
 2 Batchelor, " The Ainu of Japan," p. 196. 
 
 S The Korean Repository, December, 1895, p. 484; April, 1896, pp. 163-165. 
 
 * " The Lao people believe in possession by evil spirits, and this leads them to 
 practise many degrading things ; for example, if a sick person becomes delirious, his 
 friends believe that he is possessed by the spirit of some one who is still living. 
 The spirit-doctor is called, and attempts to ascertain from the sick one the name of 
 the person whose spirit is troubling him. In order to elicit this from the uncon- 
 scious and delirious sufferer, he pinches, scratches, or beats the patient, often inflict- 
 ing great bodily injury. Under such treatment the sick one sometimes pronounces 
 in his delirium the name of some neighbor or friend or enemy. The spirit-doctor 
 has done his work. There seems to be but little care for the recovery of the sick 
 one, but the whole neighborhood begins a series of persecutions against the one 
 whose name was mentioned by the patient. Threatening letters are sent to him, in- 
 forming him that he is accused of witchcraft and warning him to leave the country. 
 Unless he leaves at once, he is further tormented. His cattle are driven away or 
 maimed or killed, or his orchard is cut down. His house is often torn down and 
 burned, and he and his family are compelled to ilee to distant parts, homeless,'friend- 
 less, and penniless, and with a stigma upon them which frequently renders inter- 
 course with others impossible."— Dr. J. W. McKean (P. B. F. M. N.), Chieng 
 Mai, Laos. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 205 
 
 4. Neglect of the Poor and Sick.— Tenderness and sympathy 
 in the presence of suffering are characteristic of Christian rather than 
 non-Christian society. Even the most cultured 
 heathen, nations of antiquity seem to have been The compassionate 
 lacking in those refined sensibilities which are spirit of Christianity, 
 so distinctively the insignia of Christianity. We 
 search in vain among barbarous races for any sustained manifestation 
 of that humane spirit which instinctively seeks to relieve distress and 
 minister to the necessities of the helpless and afflicted. The heart of the 
 world when untouched by Christian sentiment has always been singu- 
 larly callous to the appeal of weakness and suffering.i Christ has 
 taught with the force of a new revelation the precious mission of sym- 
 pathy and the sacred duty of healing. The consciousness of kinship 
 arid the instinctive promptings of natural affection have in varying 
 degrees exerted their influence among all peoples, in some instances 
 with results far more marked than in others. In the case of individuals, 
 families, and tribes striking exceptions, no doubt, may be noted, which 
 reveal unusual tenderness of heart and kindly habits in the treatment 
 of dependents. As a rule, however, the heartless attitude of the non- 
 Christian world in the presence of distress and helplessness, especially 
 outside the bonds of kinship, has ever been a sad commentary upon 
 " the brotherhood of man." The fact that this is in many instances 
 due to ignorance, incompetence, and lack of facilities, or is the result 
 of misdirected efforts prompted by superstitious notions, while it in a 
 measure excuses the fault, does not alleviate the miseries of the victims. 
 
 In some countries, as, for instance, Japan, the social disorganization 
 attendant upon the transition from an old to a new order may be largely 
 responsible for the failure to care properly for 
 those in distress. According to the old feudal philanthropic needs 
 system, the suzerain lord was responsible for the of japan, 
 
 welfare of all his retainers; but this custom has 
 now passed away, and as yet no adequate substitute has been incor- 
 porated in the new social regime. There is at the present time great 
 need of charitable organizations in Japan.^ The poor are sadly neg- 
 
 i Uhlhorn, " Christian Charity in the Ancient Church," chap. i. 
 
 * " The old feudal system made it obligatory upon the feudal lord to care for all 
 of his retainers, and they were united in families, so that, while such cases of neglect 
 doubtless existed, it could not be said to be marked. With the giving way of that 
 system society became disorganized. The Government could not take at once the 
 place of the feudal lord, and time must elapse before society could adjust itself to the 
 new conditions. Ancient class distinctions also stood in the way. During this in- 
 terval there was not a little sufifering from sheer neglect. Hospitals for the sick, 
 
206 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 lected, as well as the many lepers, and although hospitals and charitable 
 institutions are being established, it is to be hoped that the Japanese 
 will soon institute more systematic and adequate provision for their 
 dependent classes.^ In other countries much of this neglect is the 
 result of sheer ignorance or incapacity to meet the emergencies which 
 arise, or it may be due to dependence upon resources suggested by 
 superstition, which are not only utterly useless, but in many instances 
 aggravate the sufferings of the victim. The idea that sickness is the 
 result of sin and so an infliction of the gods, or an evidence of the 
 displeasure of demons, as we have previously noted, prevails to a great 
 extent. The recourse is therefore not to curative expedients, but rather 
 to sacrifices with a view to appeasing the evil spirits. In Assam, for 
 example, a long process of inane experiment is necessary to ascertain 
 the cause of illness. Usually the method of discovery is through the 
 breaking of eggs, and the revelation comes through some occult sign, 
 which is as meaningless as it is absurd. ^ 
 
 dumb, deaf, etc., are all new in Japan. If the Japanese fail in caring for these 
 classes it happens rather out of lack of system and knowledge of how to aid them 
 than out of indifference to their wants."— Rev. David S. Spencer (M. E. M. S.), 
 Nagoya, Japan. 
 
 1 " Prior to the present era Japan had no organized charities. There was little 
 occasion for them. Every neighborhood, or daimiate, cared to some extent for its 
 own poor with a sort of family feeling. Though the cases of suffering and neglect 
 were numerous, they were not obtruded on society at large. The only beggars, 
 speaking in general terms, were priests, pilgrims, and wandering samurai, and they 
 were aided by individuals as much for the blessing or protection received as for the 
 help given. The blind and dumb were taught, but not by society at large, a few 
 simple arts, and thus became self-supporting. Nothing was done for any other class 
 of unfortunates. " — Pettee, " A Chapter of Mission History in Modern Japan," p. 141. 
 
 2 " There are egg-breakers in every village, and they are called wherever there 
 is sickness. The family buy a basketful of eggs, no matter how old they are. In 
 fact, almost every family in the village keep the eggs which their hens lay for six 
 or twelve months, so that they may be ready at hand when there is any need. The 
 egg-breaker sits down and goes through a process of conjuring. He throws a few 
 grains of rice on his board several times and washes them away again with water. 
 Then he stands up, takes an egg in his right hand, and throws it with force on 
 the board so that it breaks in pieces. It is by the pieces of the shell that he pro- 
 fesses to discover the cause of the disease. If certain pieces lie convex or concave 
 in certain places on the board, they are supposed to indicate the cause of the disease 
 and whether the person will live or die. So one egg after another is broken until 
 some sign is given which is interpreted to suit the purpose or preconceived idea of 
 the conjurer. In the same way it is found out what sacrifice should be offered to the 
 demons. All this is done in front of the house and takes place day after day as long 
 as the person is ill. While it is being done the sick person lies and groans in the 
 house, without anybody paying him any attention whatever. This is an indication 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 207 
 
 In India the superstitious reverence for the Ganges has induced 
 the custom of exposing the sick, especially those who are supposed to 
 be fatally ill, upon the banks of the river. The 
 practice arises from motives partly devout and Ancient customs in 
 partly benevolent, with a view to conferring bene- India, 
 
 fit upon the person thus exposed, as death upon 
 the banks of the sacred river is supposed to secure a speedy entrance 
 into heaven. The whole subject is carefully and fully treated by Wil- 
 kins, whose information is derived almost entirely from Hindu sources.i 
 The custom was far more prevalent in the past than it is at present. 
 When missionaries first entered India the scenes on the banks of the 
 Ganges presented a panorama of horrors. The helpless and suffering 
 were placed there to die, frequently with their mouths and ears filled 
 with mud, by friends, who thus sought to secure their speedy death in 
 proximity to those sacred waters. In spite of the supervision of the 
 present Government of India, the old customs have not as yet entirely 
 disappeared.* Many other instances could be given illustrating the 
 baneful results of mistaken ideas as to the nature of illness and the 
 methods of cure. The neglect thus induced by superstition and igno- 
 rance is not, there/ore, a clear indication of heartless cruelty, but may 
 be the result of sheer incapacity to provide a proper remedy. 
 
 of the way in which the people neglect the sick, although they spend all they have 
 in order to cure them. It is not in their case altogether a want of care, but a thorough 
 misdirection of efforts, which deprives the sufferer of all benefit. I have no doubt 
 that, humanly speaking, many die from neglect and starvation. " — Rev. Robert Evans 
 (W. C. M. M. S.), Mawphlang, Shillong, Assam. 
 
 1 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 440-453. 
 
 ^ " A missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel reported a jour- 
 ney which he took last October, in company with others, upon the Ganges, the boat 
 being towed up the stream by natives, who walked upon the banks. This missionary 
 reports that one day, while they were ascending slowly, a man was seen lying at the 
 edge of the water, while on the bank above eight or nine men sat smoking their pipes 
 and chatting. It appeared that three or four of these men were the grown-up sons, 
 and the rest the brothers or near relatives of the man whom they had left to die at 
 the edge of the stream. They did not wish him to die in his house, fearing that his 
 spirit would haunt it, so they had already performed the funeral rites, expecting that 
 the man would soon die. It seems that when the people have not the means for 
 burning the whole body they burn the tongue, lips, and beard, and this horrible 
 cruelty was committed upon this relative while still living, and who, to all appear- 
 ances, might have lived for months. The sufferings of the man must have been in- 
 tolerable, and though his sons 'promised to take him home and care for him, the 
 probability is that after the interruption was over they filled the man's mouth with 
 mud and threw him into the river. Hinduism tolerates such things even to-day!" 
 — The Missionary Herald, April, 1894, p. 143. 
 
208 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 There are still other cases of neglect resulting from a failure to carry 
 into practice theories and acknowledged obligations which if duly 
 
 recognized and executed would relieve much suf- 
 
 The treatment of the fering and misery. In China, for example, there 
 
 sick in China. jg ^ ^g^g q£ charity having both a religious and 
 
 social basis, but it is largely inoperative through 
 wilful neglect and indifference. Its stimulus is mainly the desire of 
 obtaining merit as the reward of good works, and where this stimulus 
 is sufficiently vigorous much may be done, but if the craving for merit 
 grows cold the good works lapse into inactivity. There are scattered 
 here and there homes and asylums for the aged, the friendless, the 
 orphans, and the incapable, but side by side with these institutions 
 we find much shocking callousness to suffering.i In many sections of 
 China, however, there are no hospitals, dispensaries, or charitable in- 
 stitutions, and the afflicted classes are left to the most awful sufferings.^ 
 Cases of cruel neglect arise from the lack of any suitable provision for 
 the insane, or from the dread of contact with loathsome diseases, or 
 on account of superstitious fear of the presence and intervention of 
 evil spirits. The insane are often confined and chained under circum- 
 stances of shocking misery, while the sick, if homeless, are transported 
 from doorway to doorway, since it is the legal custom to hold a man 
 
 1 " One of the most striking of all the many exhibitions of the Chinese lack of 
 sympathy is to be found in their cruelty. It is popularly believed by the Chinese 
 that the Mohammedans in China are more cruel than the Chinese themselves. 
 However this may be, there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who knows the 
 Chinese that they display an indifference to the sufferings of others which is probably 
 not to be matched in any other civilised country. " — Smith, " Chinese Characteristics, " 
 pp. 212, 213. 
 
 2 " We have here no hospitals or dispensaries, except those of missionaries ; no 
 blind schools, with the same exception ; no leper asylums but those established by 
 Christians ; no care for the insane, the paralyzed, or the poor. The sick if wealthy 
 are cared for, if poor are neglected. If friendless they are put out to die on the 
 street without food or sufficient clothing, and are moved from door to door, as the 
 person on whose door-step the body is found has to provide a coffin. ' You are not 
 allowed to die opposite the Telegraph Office, as it is a government building,' was a 
 statement I heard yelled into the ears of a dying man last summer. So the telegraph 
 employees moved him to an adjoining dust-heap. 
 
 " In winter benevolent persons give away boiled rice, wadded clothes, matting 
 for huts and straw for beds ; but this is an unusual thing and is done as a work of 
 private merit, not as a public duty. We have institutions for saving infant girls, 
 endowed by the Chinese to prevent infanticide. There are also to be found asylums 
 for ' Friendless Old and Virtuous Widows,' built and endowed by natives as meri- 
 torious works."— Rev. Joseph S. Adams (A. B. M. U.), Hankow, Province of 
 Hupeh, China. 
 
2 
 <! 
 
 ■"1 
 
 O 
 O 
 
 i4 
 
 r/i 
 ai 
 
 9 
 
 o 
 
 (u 
 
 iJ 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 X 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 3 ^'a 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 209 
 
 responsible for the funeral expenses of a stranger dying at his gate, and 
 he is, moreover, exposed to blackmail under such suspicious circum- 
 stances. In Korea an instance is recorded, in a recent communication 
 from a missionary, in which a sick man was hurriedly transported from 
 village to village for a period of five days, without food, the inhabitants 
 of each village fearing, in case he should die within its precincts, " that 
 his spirit would remain to haunt them and work them mischief." i 
 
 Aside, however, from the instances already mentioned, there are 
 numberless cases of neglect of the poor and the sick which are the 
 result of pure heartlessness, and are productive of 
 harrowing sufferings.^ The aged are cast out to The pitiless fate of the 
 die or exposed to wild beasts or to the lingering helpless and suffering, 
 ravages of starvation. Cases of desperate illness or 
 contagious diseases are left without attention or the victims are consigned 
 in some secluded place to their fate. In many lands lepers are utter out- 
 casts, without sympathy or care, and in some instances are put to death. 
 " Lepers and people suffering from unpleasant diseases are usually 
 destroyed," writes the Rev. G. M. Lawson, of the Universities' Mission 
 to Central Africa. The blind and deformed must shift for themselves.^ 
 The poor are indeed friendless, and can only hope to prolong their lives 
 as they are able to beg for sustenance. Not infrequently the sick and 
 the aged are cruelly killed, in some instances by being buried alive.* 
 This last crime has been practised in the case of lepers,^ lunatics,^ and 
 
 1 The Missionary Revimi of the World, August, 1894, p. 595. 
 
 2 " But what does sickness mean to millions of our fellow-creatures in heathen 
 lands? Throughout the East sickness is believed to be the work of demons. The 
 sick person at once becomes an object of loathing and terror, is put out of the house, 
 is taken to an outhouse, is poorly fed and rarely visited; or the astrologers, or 
 priests, or medicine-men, or vrizards assemble, beating big drums and gongs, blow- 
 ing horns, and making the most fearful noises. They light gigantic fires and dance 
 round them with their unholy incantations. They beat the sick person with clubs to 
 drive out the demon. They lay him before a roasting fire till his skin is blistered, 
 and then throw him into cold water. They stuff the nostrils of the dying with 
 aromatic mixtures or mud, and in some regions they carry the chronic sufferer to a 
 mountain-top, placing barley balls and water beside him, and leave him to die alone. " 
 —Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, " Heathen Claims and Christian Duty," address given 
 in Exeter Hall, November I, 1893. 
 
 ' Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 196. 
 
 * Chalmers and Gill, " Work and Adventure in New Guinea," p. 299. Cf. 
 Alexander, " The Islands of the Pacific," p. 395. 
 
 « The Missionary Review of the World, April, 1895, p. 267. Cf. Bailey, " The 
 Lepers of Our Indian Empire," p. 72. 
 
 6 A missionary to the Laos people writes : " Two of their number became crazy, 
 and, as was the custom, they were tied up for a time; but as they grew no better. 
 
210 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 also infants, who among some degraded races are buried alive in case 
 the mother dies. While it is not customary in China actually to bury 
 children alive, yet what is hardly less cruel is all too common. In case of 
 the serious illness of an infant, it is placed on one side pending the issue. 
 If death ensues, it is cast into the street, to be picked up, carried off in 
 a cart, and taken to a common pit outside the city walls.i References 
 confirmatory of these statements could be multiphed, but the facts are 
 so notorious that there is no necessity for other than general statements 
 concerning them. 
 
 5. Uncivilized and Cruel Customs.— The social habits of 
 heathenism referred to in previous sections have certainly not been 
 
 lacking either in barbarity or in cruelty. There 
 
 What are the standards remain, however, Some customs, not as yet men- 
 
 of civilization? tioned, which are beyond question cruel, and 
 
 others which if judged by the standards of a 
 true civilization— such as a consensus of the average culture of Chris- 
 tendom would sanction and enforce — must be designated as indecent 
 and uncivilized, if not brutal. It is not sufficient to say in challenging 
 this statement that many of these customs are regarded as unobjec- 
 
 they were taken out and buried alive in spite of their cries and pleading."— Mrs. 
 S. C. Peoples (P. B. F. M. N.), Laos, Siam. 
 
 1 " When a child sickens it has, according to the means and intelligence of the 
 parents, the same anxious care and medical attendance that would be given among 
 us ; but if remedies fail of effect and death is apparently near, the situation changes 
 at once. The little thing is stripped naked and placed on the mud or brick floor just 
 inside the outer door. The parents 'leave it there and watch the issue. If it sur- 
 vives the ordeal, which is seldom the case, it is a true child of their own flesh and 
 blood ; if it dies, it never was their child, and is thrown into the street. No power 
 could induce them to give it proper burial in the family resting-place for the dead. 
 If you lived in Peking you would be surprised never to see a child's funeral pass, 
 but if you go into the street very early in the morning you would find the explana- 
 tion. You would meet a large covered vehicle drawn by two oxen, having a sign 
 across the front stating its horrible office, and piled to the brim with the bodies of 
 children. Sometimes there are a hundred in the cart at once, thrown in as garbage, 
 nearly all of them naked, a few tied up in old reed baskets, and fewer, never more 
 than one or two, in cheap board coffins. These carts go about the streets each night, 
 pick up these pitiable remains, some of them mutilated by dogs ; they are thrown in 
 like so much wood and taken to a pit outside the city walls, into which they are 
 dumped, then covered with quicklime."— W^otob'j Work for Woman, February, 
 1896, pp. 31, 32, quoted from " The Real Chinaman," by Holcombe. 
 
 " When walking on the wall of the city not long since I found the head of a child, 
 its body having been all eaten by the dogs. Every morning a cart goes around the 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 211 
 
 tionable by those who practise them. This, if true, only indicates 
 faulty standards of civilization and shows that they need a thorough 
 reconstruction. Civilization is much more than a local subjective code 
 which any barbarian can determine for himself. The mere fact that he 
 is a barbarian renders him incompetent to fix the standards of social or- 
 der and refinement. Civilization is the matured product of intellectual 
 culture and material progress formed under the guiding influence of reli- 
 gion, morality, decency, justice, brotherhood, knowledge, science, indus- 
 trial enterprise, and the inventive genius of man. Its goal is prosperity, 
 peace, happiness, and the highest good of the race.'^ Its code consists 
 of those principles, laws, and customs which have become regulative 
 among the enlightened nations of the earth, and have been drawn from 
 the higher and purer sources of morality and culture. The elevating 
 and fixing of refined standards of civilization is an achievement which 
 cannot be surrendered at the dictum of a less civilized society, nor 
 levelled down to coincide with the views and traditions of those peo- 
 ples who have not yet passed the stage of barbarism. Civilization at 
 its best must rather be maintained and cherished as a helpful incentive 
 and guiding standard to communities which are still in a state of ar- 
 rested development, under the power of blinding ignorance or degrad- 
 ing custom. 
 
 The specifications which seem to call for notice under this general 
 head of uncivilized and cruel customs are such as 
 foot-binding, barbarous and filthy manners, un- Some customs which 
 
 . J,,. ,ij.j • are uncivilized and 
 
 cleanness m person and habits, lack of domestic cruel, 
 
 privacy, insufficient clothing of the body, promis- 
 cuous bathing, disgusting peculiarities in diet, abominable dances and 
 orgies, ascetic cruelties, and heathenish burial rites. 
 
 city and gathers up the dead children which have been ' thrown away.' When a 
 baby dies, instead of burying it they simply throw it out, where it will be gathered 
 up and hauled away by this ox-cart."— Professor Isaac T. Headland (M. E. M. S.), 
 Peking, China. 
 
 1 An admirable definition of civilization was given by Lord Russell, Chief Justice 
 of Great Britain, in his Address on Arbitration before the American Bar Association 
 at Saratoga, August 20, i8g6. His words are as follows : 
 
 " What indeed is true civilization? By its fruit you shall know it. It is not 
 dominion, wealth, material luxury; nay, not even a great literature and education 
 widespread, good though these things be. Civilization is not a veneer; it must 
 penetrate to the very heart and core of societies of men. Its true signs are thought 
 for the poor and suffering, chivalrous regard and respect for woman, the frank recog- 
 nition of human brotherhood, irrespective of race or color or nation or religion, the 
 narrowing of the domain of mere force as a governing factor in the world, the love 
 of ordered freedom, abhorrence of what is mean and cruel and vile, ceaseless devo- 
 
212 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The process of foot-binding has been accurately described by Miss 
 Adele M. Fielde, long a resident of China, in her " Pagoda Shadows." 
 The suffering inflicted is no doubt most distress- 
 ing and in some cases intense.^ Taking all China 
 
 Foot-binding in Cliina. , . . . . . ^i ^ „ i_ li • ^ ^i 
 
 together, it is estimated that probably mne-tenths 
 of the women have bound feet." 2 The origin of 
 the practice seems to be obscure. It was first known in the imperial 
 household during the T'ang dynasty. It is said to have been adopted as 
 a disguise to natural deformity. At present it is a tool of vanity, and 
 has been made an arbitrary sign of respectability. It was not known 
 in the classical period, and made its appearance about fourteen hundred 
 years after the time of Confucius. It cannot therefore be said to have 
 the sanction of the Chinese sages. It has, however, so firmly estab- 
 lished itself in Chinese society that the emperors themselves have been 
 
 tion to the claims of justice." — The Review of Reviews (American edition), Septem- 
 ber, 1896, p. 320. 
 
 1 ' ' The bandages used in misshaping the feet are woven in small hand-looms, 
 and are about two inches wide and ten feet long. One end of the bandage is laid on 
 the inside of the instep ; thence it is carried over the four small toes, drawing them 
 down upon the sole ; then it passes under the foot, over the instep, and around the 
 heel, drawing the heel and toe nearer together, making a bulge on the instep, and a 
 deep niche in the sole underneath ; thence it follows its former course until the ban- 
 dage is all applied, and the last end is sewn dovra firmly on the underlying cloth. 
 Once a month or oftener, the feet, with the bandages upon them, are put into a bucket 
 of hot water and soaked. Then the bandages are removed, the dead skin is rubbed 
 off, the foot is kneaded more fully into the desired shape, pulverized alum is laid on, 
 and clean bandages quickly affixed. If the bandages are long left off, the blood again 
 circulates in the feet, and the rebinding is very painful. The pain is least when the 
 feet are so firmly and so constantly bound as to be benumbed by the pressure of the 
 bandages. It not infrequently happens that the flesh becomes putrescent during the 
 process of binding, and portions slough off from the sole. Sometimes a toe or more 
 drops off. In this case the feet are much smaller than they could else be made, and 
 elegance is secured at the cost of months of suffering. The dolor ordinarily con- 
 tinues about a year, then gradually diminishes, till at the end of two years the feet 
 are dead and painless. During this time the victim of fashion sleeps only on her 
 back, lying crosswise the bed, with her feet dangling over the side, so that the edge 
 of the bedstead presses on the nerves behind the knees in such a way as to dull the 
 pain somewhat. There she swings her feet and moans, and even in the coldest 
 weather cannot wrap herself in a coverlet, because every return of warmth to her 
 limbs increases the aching. The sensation is said to be like that of having the joints 
 punctured with needles. While the feet are being formed they are useless, and their 
 owner moves about the room to which she is confined by putting her knees on two 
 stools, so that her feet will not touch the floor, and throwing her weight upon one knee 
 at a time, while she moves the stools alternately forward with her hands. When 
 
 t /*»■</., p. 45. 
 
FOOTBINDING IN ChINA. 
 
 The three lower pictures are from Chinese drawings found in a little volume 
 
 written in Chinese by a native Christian pastor, advocatmg 
 
 the abolition of footbindinf . 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 213 
 
 unable to dislodge it. No Manchu lady, it is said, binds her feet, and, 
 strange to say, " the Empress of China and the highest ladies of the 
 imperial court allow their feet to grow to their natural form and size. 
 Foot-binding is therefore in defiance of imperial example." i Dr. 
 Henry is of the opinion that " any persistent attempt on the part of 
 the Government to interfere with the practice would probably lead to 
 rebellion." ^ Dr. Talmage, of Amoy, has expressed his opinion that 
 foot-binding is one great cause of the prevalence of infanticide in 
 China,^ and this opinion is confirmed by a statement made by the 
 Rev. F. P. Gilman.* It is a hopeful sign of the passing of this de- 
 plorable custom that in connection with Christian enlightenment the 
 powerful persuasions of Christianity are beginning to imdermine its 
 social status, and that Anti-Foot-Binding Societies are now a recognized 
 feature of Christian missions in China. 
 
 the feet are completely remodeled there is a notch in the middle of the sole deep 
 enough to conceal a silver dollar put in edgewise across the foot ; the four small 
 toes are so twisted that their ends may be seen on the inside of the foot below the 
 ankle, and the broken and distorted bones of the middle of the foot are pressed into 
 a mass where the instep should be ; the shape is like a hen's head, the big toe repre- 
 senting the bill. There is little beside skin and bone below the knee. The foot 
 cannot be stood upon without its bandages, and can never be restored to its natural 
 shape. It is a frightful and fetid thing. No bound-footed woman ever willingly lets 
 her bare feet be seen, even by those who are likewise maimed. She wears little 
 cotton shoes when abed, putting, as it were, her night-cap on her feet." — Fielde, 
 " Pagoda Shadows," pp. 40-42. 
 
 1 Woman's Work in the Far East, May, 1894, pp. 117-120. Cf. Henry, "The 
 Cross and the Dragon, '' p. so- 
 
 2 There are some indications, however, that the subject is not to be forever 
 ignored in Chinese official circles. In the last medical report of the Chinese Maritime 
 Customs (under the supervision oi Sir Robert Hart) reference is made by the medi- 
 cal officer at Chungking to " the injuries frequently arising from the practice of conv- 
 pressing the feet of women and girls. It appears that the women of Szechuen 
 Province, and especially of Chungking, bind the feet more tightly than in other dis- 
 tricts in the Yang-tsze valley. The practice, too, is more general, for the very poor, 
 as well as the farming community, bind the feet and seem to regard feet of the 
 natural size in women as reproachfully as do the wealthy classes. When questioned 
 closely, not one woman in a hundred will deny that she is a constant sufferer owing 
 to the tight bandages. Many foreigners in China imagine that after a woman reaches 
 maturity she is free from pain, but according to this authority this is not the case. Dr. 
 
 * " Report of Shanghai Conference, 1877," p. 137. 
 
 < " Foot-binding is common among the Chinese [in Hainan], though the poverty 
 of the people keeps it from becoming very prevalent. Among the Loi, or aboriginal 
 population of the island of Hainan it is almost unknown. Where foot-binding is 
 practised there is a great deal of infanticide, while in regions where it is not known 
 this evil does not prevail."— Rev. F. P. Gilman (P. B. F. M. N.), Hainan. 
 
314 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL FROGRESS 
 
 It is not worth while to describe in detail the filthy habits and the 
 unclean ways of the heathen world. It is as a rule unkempt, malodor- 
 ous, and monotonously repulsive. There are ex- 
 ceptions, of course, in every land, and many in- 
 
 Undeanly habits. ^ , , , , , , . . 
 
 Stances of cleanly ways and refined mstmcts, 
 which only serve to make more offensive the 
 habits of the multitude. In some cases, as, for example, among the 
 better class of Japanese, there is exceptional cleanliness of person ; yet 
 even in Japan we find the Ainu, whose habits are especially objection- 
 able. As a rule, however, heathenism in its more savage haunts sits 
 in squalor, filth, and imperturbable dirtiness. A description of the 
 Karens,^ given by one who resides among them, might serve for many 
 other places where the statements would be equally applicable. 
 
 The question of clothes is one upon which Christian civilization has 
 a very firm and pronounced opinion. Whatever variety and adapta- 
 bility there may be in the styles of clothing in 
 different countries, the person should be decently 
 
 unseemly nudity. , , , . . 
 
 covered, and this surely is not the case as yet 
 among most savage races. Among semi-civilized 
 peoples, and even within the precincts of civilization, there are customs 
 in dress which are certainly not prompted by the truer instincts of re- 
 McCartney, the writer of the report, never found an elderly woman who did not 
 complain of pain. Women with compressed feet cannot stand for any length of time 
 without great suffering, in addition to the agony endured in the early period of 
 binding. Paralysis of the legs frequently ensues on the practice, and in every case 
 treated by him the patient recovered rapidly when the feet were unbound and left 
 free. Eczema and ulceration also are common, not amongst the poor only, but also 
 amongst the wealthy and official classes. In several cases within his own practice 
 gangrene, calling for amputation, followed on compression, and in two cases nature 
 had amputated both feet after gangrene caused by bandaging. " — 7"-4«^a27 (London 
 Times), May 27, i8g6. 
 
 1 " The filthiness of the heathen Karens, especially those in the mountains, 
 almost beggars description. They seldom bathe their bodies and never wash their 
 clothing. They have a superstition that it is dangerous to bathe when affected with 
 anything that causes fever, and that to bathe the body when there is an open sore 
 anywhere on it is sure to make the sore worse. As there is a great deal of fever in 
 the mountains, and open sores are very general, it is rare that all the conditions are 
 favorable, and bathing is consequently very seldom attempted. As to washing such 
 beds as they possess, or their clothing, such a thing is practically unknown. The 
 washing of the vessels which they use for holding their food is as unusual as wash- 
 ing their clothing. It is a common custom to have the pig-pen under the house." 
 —Rev. W. I. Price (A. B. M. U.), Henzada, Burma. 
 
 Cf. also letter from Dr. J. N. Gushing (A. B. M. U.), of Rangoon, Burma, in 
 Tki Independent, January 18, 1894, p. 15. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 215 
 
 finement. For a race as advanced as the Japanese their habits in this 
 respect are open to criticism. That they do not recognize the indeco- 
 rum of the customs which prevail among them is to their discredit, and 
 until there is a decided change in Japanese ways the influence of such 
 laxity cannot but be degrading to the social life of the people. It is 
 noticeable that Japanese Christians " at once become more careful 
 about exposing the person, even among themselves." A missionary 
 writes: "It must in truth be said that there is now in Japan much less 
 nudity than there used to be, but there is room for great and immedi- 
 ate improvement upon present customs." 
 
 In connection with scantiness of clothing, the idea seems to have 
 prevailed from ancient times that tattooing and a graceless overloading 
 with ornaments must supplement the lack of cloth- 
 ing. The tattooing process is often most elabor- 
 
 , y , . , . , Barbaric toilets. 
 
 ately grotesque and hideous, as is the case among 
 the Chins of Burma, the Maoris, and the island 
 populations of the East Indies and the South Seas. In its complete 
 and fantastic forms it produces corrugated ridges of flesh protruding 
 in the shape of ugly and irregular designs, turning the face, which is 
 usually selected for the highest exhibition of the art, into a shocking 
 caricature of the human features.^ Tattooing is known also in Japan, 
 India, Formosa, Africa, and among the Indian tribes of North and 
 South America. The clumsy and even painful profusion of barbaric 
 ornaments worn upon the lips, nose, ears, neck, and other parts of the 
 person is one of the signs of savagery which only the reiining power 
 of Christian enlightenment is able to banish.^ 
 
 Promiscuous bathing, as in Japan, with all due allowance for what 
 may be said in justification of it as an immemorial custom, and grant- 
 ing that it should not be regarded as a manifest 
 indication of immorality or even of indelicacy 
 
 Promiscuous bathing. 
 
 among the Japanese,^ is yet a habit which they 
 will inevitably abandon as they become more re- 
 sponsive to the spirit of a sensitive and refined civilization. In other 
 countries it is very rarely tolerated, or if practised at all, is recognized 
 as objectionable and something to be concealed. 
 
 1 Robley, " Moko; or, Maori Tattooing"; Vincent, "Actual Africa," pp. 432, 
 439; Ratzel, " The History of Mankind," vol. i., pp. 195, 196. 
 
 2 Tyler, " Forty Years among the Zulus," p. 61 ; Rowley, " Twenty Years in 
 Central Africa," p. 9; Vincent, " Actual Africa, " p. 438; Work and Workcri in thf 
 Mission Field, February, 1893, p. 55. 
 
 ' Bacon, "Japanese Girls and Women," pp. 258-?6g. 
 
216 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In the matter of diet, while there is much that is repulsive in almost 
 
 every land, yet nothing seems quite so loathsome as the carrion-eating 
 
 of the low castes and outcastes in India.i Dr. 
 
 Uhl, an American Lutheran missionary at Guntur, 
 
 LoathBdme diet. . „ „, , , , , , ■, 
 
 wntes : The non-caste people have the foul and 
 physically defiling habit of eating the carcasses of 
 animals which have died from disease and which often are but a little 
 departure from carrion. The results are seen in the puffy nature of the 
 face and body of those who unceasingly follow this habit, and in their 
 passionate nature." 
 
 The prevalence of abominable dances, marked by wild and unnat- 
 ural orgies, is characteristic of savage life. These dances are sometimes 
 inspired by the spirit of war. Again, they are 
 religious, or they are festal and social in their 
 
 Abominable dances. 
 
 character. In many mstances they are obscene 
 revels, and present temptations which no savage 
 nature is able to resist. In describing one of these performances in 
 Micronesia, the Rev. Francis M. Price (A. B. C. F. M.) speaks of it as "a 
 most subtle device of Satan, and his most powerful weapon, doing faf 
 more harm than all the wars and other evils combined. It is exciting, 
 furnishes the only opportunity that their natural vanity has for express- 
 ing itself in decorating the body, and is hcentious through and through." ^ 
 A similar incident in Africa is commented upon by Mr. George D. 
 Adamson, a missionary among the Bakete in the Congo State.* 
 
 1 Thoburn, " India and Malaysia," p. 401. 
 
 " The chackler (or cobbler) — at least as I have had occasion to know him — has 
 very much original sin in his nature. He has fallen low among the lowest. But 
 that he can articulate human sounds and mend boots, there is very little to differ- 
 entiate him from the beast whose hide he tans. Filth is his natural element, and he 
 revels in it. His clothes and his habitation (both very limited in dimensions) are 
 only less filthy than his habits and person. His talk, vile at the best, often reeks 
 with filthiest abuse. He smokes bhang, drinks toddy, and, when he can get it, 
 gluts himself on deceased animals." — Rev. Alfred Dumbarton (W. M. S.), Shimoga, 
 Mysore, India, in Work and Workers in the Mission Field, August, 1895, p. 335. 
 
 2 The Missionary Herald, December, 1895, p. 503. 
 
 3 Mr. Adamson speaks of visiting the town of Kasenga, where a heathen dance 
 was about to be held. He writes as follows: 
 
 " As I passed through the main square in the town, I noted that they were sweep- 
 ing it most thoroughly. On inquiry I found they were going to have one of their 
 evening dances ; not the comparatively innocent things indulged in at home, but a 
 real heathenish dance, in which the women will appear minus the little clothes they 
 usually wear, and with the men they will go through the most fantastic and beastly, 
 as well as, to our mind, the most immoral capers imaginable. As this dance pro- 
 ceeds, the ' doctor ' (for that is what they call this much-feared man among them) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 217 
 
 Ascetic cruelties have been referred to in a previous section, where 
 self-torture was under consideration. Eastern asceticism is often ac- 
 companied by gross features, stamping it with a 
 demoralizing taint. Besides its vulgar character, 
 
 , , ^ , /• -1 1 -uv 1 Tainted asceticism. 
 
 the cruel nature of many of its exhibitions makes 
 
 it a degrading and hardening spectacle for those 
 
 who habitually contemplate it. It prevails extensively in India, except 
 
 in its more objectionable forms, which have been prohibited by law. 
 
 The customs associated with burial services are often barbaric and 
 deplorable. A bereavement, sad and dreary enough in itself, becomes 
 the occasion of extortion, and involves an amount 
 of expensive ceremonialism which is extremely 
 
 , Funcr&l orgies* 
 
 burdensome. It is often accompanied by rites 
 and ceremonies which are debasing in their char- 
 acter, and as frequently it presents an opportunity for outbursts of 
 barbarous fanaticism or the indulgence in wicked orgies, which would 
 be objectionable at any time, but become shockingly so in the presence 
 of death. In fact, one of the most beautiful and vivid touches of the 
 rehgion of Christ is the transformation it works in the presence of death. 
 There is hardly a more striking manifestation of the social tendencies 
 of Christianity, as contrasted with those of heathenism, than that which 
 is revealed at a Christian funeral when compared with the customs 
 incidental to heathen burial. 
 
 Miss Adele Fielde writes concerning the " Mortuary Customs " of 
 China : " When the Chinese wish to declare the extreme vexatiousness 
 of any piece of work, they say, ' It is more trouble 
 than a funeral,' the obsequies of a parent being Mortuary customs of 
 
 , , ,, . „ . . , the Chinese and 
 
 reckoned the most maddening afltair m human ex- the Parsis. 
 
 perience."! Chinese burial ceremonies frequently 
 last many days, and are described as " a ruinous burden to the poor, 
 since relatives, friends, and strangers all crowd in and fairly eat them 
 out of house and home." As regards infant burial in China, it is a 
 summary proceeding, usually without coffins, if indeed any burial is 
 
 will come out of his little house in the centre of the square and go through the most 
 vile movements, as well as say some most abominable things. His wicked capers 
 form the pattern on which the people model theirs. When he changes his antics a 
 new fashion in these abominations sets in. It is at once seen that until his fell power 
 is broken there is not much chance of doing these people good."— Mr. George D. 
 Adamson (P. B. F. M. S.), Luebo, Congo Free State, in The Missionary, June, 
 1894, p. 239. 
 
 Cf. also Macdonald, " Religion and Myth," pp. 44, 4$. 
 
 1 Fielde, " A Corner of Cathay," p. 49. 
 
218 CHRISTIAN- MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 attempted. The shocking custom of leaving babes unburied, to be the 
 prey of dogs or other animals, is all too common.^ Among the Pa-rsis 
 of India burial is conducted with great decorum, but consists in placing 
 the dead body in a "Tower of Silence," which is an enclosure sur- 
 rounded by very high walls and open to the sky. It is the home of 
 vultures, which swarm in its vicinity and swoop down upon the corpse as 
 soon as it is deposited within the tower. In an incredibly brief time 
 nothing is left but the skeleton. This method of disposing of the dead 
 seems to be preferred to burial. 
 
 Among the more savage races burial ceremonies are attended with 
 the most debasing customs. It is well if the living escape, since human 
 
 sacrifices often form a ghastly feature of the scene. 
 
 Burial rites In the Funeral rites in the South Seas are said to beg- 
 
 South Seas. g^j. description " for obscenity, noise, cruelty, and 
 
 beastly exposiure."2 Around the grim reahties 
 of death have clustered innumerable heathen superstitions that often 
 lead to strange treatment of the bodies of those who have passed 
 away. Many of these singular customs are traceable to the belief, uni- 
 versal in Polynesia, that the soul of the dead person is not separated 
 at once from the body, but lingers in some state of mystic alliance with 
 it, and may be ministered to by the living relatives of the deceased.^ 
 An Oriental funeral is frequently the scene of wild outbursts of grief, 
 no doubt often sincere and expressive of the intense bitterness of sor- 
 row ; yet in many cases the well-known fact that much of this fanatical 
 fury and noise is in accordance with commonplace custom rather than 
 indicative of genuine sorrow deprives it of its impressiveness, and turns 
 a funeral occasion in not a few instances into little more than a cere- 
 monial function. 
 
 1 A little poem entitled " No Children's Graves in China," by Andrew 
 J. Eidson, D.D., will be found in Woman's Work for Woman, July, 1894, 
 p. 183. 
 
 8 A typical case is described by the Rev. James M. Alexander, in " The Islands 
 of the Pacific," p. 241. Referring to funeral rites which he has witnessed, he 
 says : 
 
 " They lasted seven days and were the darkest days I ever saw. Companies came 
 from all parts, filling the air with loud wailings, dancing in a state of perfect nudity 
 around the corpse like so many furies, cutting their flesh with shells and sharp stones 
 till the blood trickled down to their feet, the women tearing out their hair, both men 
 and women knocking out their teeth, indulging in the most revolting licentiousness, 
 and feasting to excess, while muskets were fired and sea-shells were blown with a 
 long, deep, sepulchral sound during the whole night. Verily, I seemed to be for the 
 time on the borders of the infernal regions." 
 
 8 Ratzel, " The History of Mankind," vol. i., pp. 46-48. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 219 
 
 6. Insanitary Conditions.— The science of modern sanitation 
 may be said to be both a creation and a sign of civilization, yet even 
 in the most enlightened communities proper arrangements can be se- 
 cured only by the oversight and pressure of legal authority. In the 
 non-Christian world, where neither knowledge, custom, public spirit, 
 nor legal enactment exerts any very effective influence in controlling 
 private habits or guarding common interests with a view to sanitary 
 requirements, the whole matter has been left with Kttle or no supervi- 
 sion. Even the crude and imperfect arrangements which are made 
 for public and domestic sanitation are often not only useless, but harm- 
 ful. In personal as well as domestic habits the most frightfully filthy 
 and abominable customs prevail, and carry with them the penalties of 
 defying nature's laws. 
 
 Strange to say, some of the most advanced nations of the Orient, 
 as, for example, India and China, are as indifferent as the most barba- 
 rous peoples to the simplest laws, and even the 
 ordinary decencies, of a sanitary code. In the The sanitary condi- 
 villages of India, and also in the large centres of *'"" "*' ind'"- 
 population, even the most rudimentary provision 
 for proper sanitation is neglected, while the most unspeakable desecra- 
 tion not only of the laws, but of the proprieties, of hygienic living exists. 
 The water which is used for drinking and for all iiousehold purposes i^ 
 almost invariably loaded with impurities of the most loathsome and 
 dangerous character. '^ Sir Richard Temple states with emphasis that ■ 
 impure water in India " has produced more physical mischief than any 
 cause whatsoever, and perhaps as much mischief as all other causes 
 put together could produce." ^ At the Eighth International Congress 
 of Hygiene and Demography, held at Budapest in 1894, the President 
 of the Tropical Section, Dr. Theodore Duka, a surgeon in the Indian 
 Army, presented an address on " Tropical Medicine," in which he re- 
 ferred in some detail to the sanitary state of Indian villages. The 
 following passage is sufficiently explicit as to their condition : 
 
 " It is almost needless to enter upon a description of the sanitation 
 of an Indian village, for there is a total absence of it. The huts com- 
 posing the villages and hamlets are erected, for the most part, on flat 
 land or on slightly elevated ground, exposed to the scorching sun and 
 fiery winds, or drenched by rain. The people drink from the pond in 
 
 1 " In one and the same tank, for many a town, clothes are washed and people 
 bathe themselves, while also here is the supply of water for cooking and for drinb 
 ing."— Rev. L, L. Uhl, Ph.D. (Luth. G. S.), Guntur. ImU«. 
 
 2 " Oriental Experience," p. 474, 
 
220 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which they bathe and in which their cattle wallow, sxirrounded by the 
 refuse of their daily lives. The cattle consist of cows and buffaloes, 
 occasionally of goats, donkeys, and pigs. All live under the same roof 
 and lie upon the ground beside their master and his family. There is 
 hardly a window or an opening for ventilation. The dung-pit is not 
 far from the well-water supply, where the washing of clothes, of animals, 
 and of men is carried on from day to day ; and the women provide 
 their households from this soiu-ce with water for cooking purposes and 
 for drinking. The people have so lived for centuries, knowing and 
 apparently caring for nothing better " i Even the larger centres of 
 population are no better, except as the British Government, in spite of 
 enormous difficulties, enforces sanitary regulations.^ These government 
 provisions for the public health are often extremely unwelcome to the 
 people, and are looked upon as tyrannical and impertinent, and disre- 
 garded whenever it is safe to do so.^ Even in the city of Calcutta the 
 infant death-rate under one year of age, in 1894, was 402 per 1000, 
 and in 1893 it was 415. The Health Officer of the city expresses his 
 opinion that the " high infantile death-rate is due to a want of know- 
 ledge on the part of parents as to the care of infants, and to the in- 
 sanitary conditions of the house."* Indian pilgrimages, festivals, and 
 enormous concourses at the holy places, with the consequent defilement 
 
 1 The Indian Magazine and Review, May, 1895, p. 262. 
 
 " The heathen Santals almost never wash. Dirt diseases, especially itch, are at 
 certain seasons almost universal. They keep their houses fairly clean. A woman 
 after childbirth is left alone, unwashed for several days. The people eat carrion in 
 almost any degree of putrefaction, also snakes of certain kinds, rats, mice, and snails. 
 The cattle very often occupy the same house with the family at night. Every child 
 swarms with vermin, unless its hair is kept closely cropped or the head shaved. 
 These people will drink water containing sewage, but in this respect they are not so 
 depraved as their Hindu neighbors, who almost constantly drink the water in which 
 they have washed themselves and their household utensils." — Rev. James M. Mac- 
 phail (F. C. S.), Chakai, Santalia, Bengal. 
 
 2 "Native cities, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of government ofRoers, 
 are in a most filthy condition. Recently Surgeon-Major Roe was appointed to report 
 on the sanitary condition of Rawal Pindi, a comparatively clean city, adjoining as it 
 does about the most important military station of the empire and having been built up 
 principally within recent years. The plain, unvarnished description of just what he 
 saw was sickening." — Rev. Robert Morrison (P. B. F. M. N.), Lahore, India. 
 
 3 " A Collector (the highest European officer of the district) told me recently that 
 probably nothing would sooner cause riot among the village population than sanitary 
 laws forced upon them. Their ideas of sanitation are so vague that a long period of 
 gradual instruction must precede any legislation that would be wise." — Rev. James 
 E. Tracy (A. B. C. F. M.), Kodaikanal, Madras, India. 
 
 * The Indian Magazine and Review, July, 1896, p. 383. 
 
Groups of Aboriginal Santals, Bengal, India. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 221 
 
 of water used for both bathing and drinking by the multitude, and the 
 prevalent mortuary customs, are also large counts in this indictment 
 of polluted India.i The result is disease and suffering to an extent 
 distressing to contemplate. A missionary writes: "In some villages 
 [of Ceylon], chiefly owing to the filth and immorality of the people, 
 there is hardly a home free from a painful kind of sickness. In one 
 of the new village schools, out of sixty children present only two were 
 free from sickness." ^ 
 
 The British Governinent in India is making heroic efforts to remedy 
 these evils. Sanitary Boards are established and proper provisions for 
 pubhc health are being pushed as rapidly as pos- 
 sible. In the Blue Book for 1894-95, on "The The efforts of the British 
 
 _, , 1-.-- -ii-* t^f* /. Government to intro- 
 
 Moral and Material Progress and Condition of a^ce proper sanitation. 
 India," interesting details are given as to the sani- 
 tary undertakings now in progress, which consist chiefly in providing 
 pure water-supply for cities, in establishing sewerage schemes, in devis- 
 ing rules and regulations with reference to drainage, in the prohibiting 
 of offensive and dangerous nuisances, and disseminating the knowledge 
 of sanitary rules among the populace. The work of the sanitary en- 
 gineering department is important, and the introduction of the " Village 
 Sanitation Act " is reported in hundreds of villages. Many costly and 
 splendid plants for the water-supply of important cities and towns are 
 referred to as having been completed, as in Cawnpore, Lucknow, Delhi, 
 and smaller places, with a high-level reservoir in Rangoon. Others are 
 reported as in progress throughout the British provinces, with important 
 drainage schemes ; yet, with all' the care and oversight which the British 
 Government can give this stupendous task, the statistics as to the death- 
 rate and the fatalities from various diseases tell with painful emphasis 
 
 1 " Sanitation is sadly neglected. In many villages the streets are horribly 
 iilthy, and almost all the approaches are foul and fetid, especially in the morning be- 
 fore the pigs and buffaloes have been round to act as scavengers. While the 
 Mohammedans are careful of the graves of their people, the Hindus who bury are 
 very careless of them. A Hindu graveyard is frequently a ghastly sight, as corpses 
 are laid so near the surface of the ground that the graves are easily rifled by jackals 
 and hyenas. During the prevalence of a bad cholera epidemic the condition of some 
 graveyards is indescribable. Though Hindus are in theory very particular about the 
 water they use, they concern themselves in practice with little more than ceremonial 
 purity and are often very careless as to the condition of their wells. In some places 
 I have seen Brahmans washing themselves and their clothes in wells from which 
 the villagers obtained their drinking water."— Rev. W. Howard Campbell, M.A. 
 (L. M. S.), Cuddapah, Madras, India. Cf. also " Sanitary Reform in India," 
 pp. 7-10. 
 
 2 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, May, 1895, p. 209. 
 
222 CtiRISTtAM MISSIONS aMD SOCIAL PUOGHMSS 
 
 how much there is still to be done. The year 1894 was marked by an 
 exceptionally high death-rate, as the following figures reveal: from 
 dysentery and diarrhoea, 257,808 deaths, as against 196,667 in 1893; 
 from cholera, 521,647, being in the ratio of 2.44 per 1000 of popula- 
 tion, as against 216,827 in 1893 ; from fever, 4,952,328, equal to 23.23 
 per 1000, as compared with 3,716,926, or 17.44 in 1893. The total 
 number of successful vaccinations during 1894-95 amounted to 
 6,869,271. The result of this precautionary measure was that the 
 deaths reported from smallpox were only 41,604, representing a ratio 
 of 0.19 per 1 000.1 The condition of the Native States, and of Farther 
 India,2 including Assam, is even less sanitary than that of British India. 
 China is notorious for the entire neglect of proper sanitation. There 
 is even a lively rivalry among its most important cities as to which 
 deserves the prize for surpassing filthiness.' Peking, 
 the capital, seems to be by no means an unworthy 
 
 Malodorous China, ,.,',., 
 
 candidate for the highest laurels in the contest, 
 and has even been pronounced by competent 
 judges as the dirtiest city on the face of the globe.* Mr. Curzon's 
 description of an entrance into the Chinese capital is graphic in its 
 realism.^ " Above all other characteristics of Peking," says Mr. Nor- 
 man, " one thing stands out in horrible prominence. Not to mention 
 it would be wilfully to omit the most striking feature of the place. 
 I mean its filth. It is the most horribly and indescribably filthy 
 place that can be imagined; indeed, imagination must fall far short 
 of the fact. Some of the daily sights of the pedestrian iti Peking 
 
 1 Cf. " Statement of the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India 
 During the Year 1894-95," PP- 'Q-^S- 
 
 2 " In heathen villages the condition of their homes is still much as it was a 
 hundred years ago, when Father Sangermano described them as a scene of confusion 
 and dirtiness. While cooking meals the rice-water is poured down through the 
 bamboo floors, and this, with all sorts of filth and rubbish collecting and putrefying, 
 produces a stench that is truly nauseating. Itch in its most revolting development 
 is very common here, while in some sections lepers are quite numerous. The chil- 
 dren are allowed to run about naked until they are from six to ten years of age. 
 When cholera or other infectious or contagious disease appears, the fatality is often 
 appalling."— Rev. F. H. Eveleth (A. B. M. U.), Sandoway, Burma. 
 
 ' Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 138. 
 
 * " The insanitary conditions here are such that it would never do for me to 
 write a description of them, or if I wrote it, you would never care to present it to an 
 audience. What I see, hear, and smell as I go along the street, with my wife or 
 a lady friend walking with me, neither you nor I would dare to speak of before an 
 American assembly."— Rev. Isaac T. Headland (M. E. M. S.), Peking, China. 
 
 » Curzon, " Problems of the Far East," p. 245. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 223 
 
 could hardly be more than hinted at by one man to another in the 
 disinfecting atmosphere of a smoking-room." ^ We forbear to finish the 
 paragraph. If all this can be said of the capital of the empire, what 
 must be the state of things (if, indeed, there is any possibility of any- 
 thing worse) throughout the thronging cities, towns, and thickly popu- 
 lated provinces of the great imperial cloaca of the Chinese Empire! In 
 fact, the attempt to describe the sanitary state of China seems to exhaust 
 the linguistic capacities of all who undertake it. The impression which 
 one has in reading their struggling efforts is that the reality is literally 
 beyond description.^ We are not surprised, therefore, to hear of the 
 recent plague and its awful ravages in Chinese cities, and yet the lesson 
 seems to be quite lost.^ Dr. S. Wells Williams has described in several 
 places his impressions of the noisome and reeking aspects of Chinese 
 cities.* The testimony in private letters from residents of the country 
 indicates that the China of to-day is no improvement upon the China 
 of the past.^ Japan is perhaps the cleanest country in Asia, yet at the 
 opposite extreme of nauseating defilement is its neighbor Korea. 
 
 This repulsive story of slovenly sanitation could be continued with 
 dismal monotony as descriptive of the status in all purely Asiatic coun- 
 tries. In fact, the annual threat of cholera which comes in connection 
 with the pilgrimage to Mecca, and gathers sufficient cumulative power to 
 throw a shadow of danger over all Europe, is a sharp reminder of the 
 
 1 Norman, " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," pp. 209, 210. 
 
 2 "The Records of the Shanghai Conference, 1890,'' pp. 269, 270. 
 
 * " Since the plague, which carried oil so many tens of thousands, one would 
 have supposed that the decaying piles of rubbish would have been removed from the 
 streets. But not a shovelful has been taken away, so far as one can judge."— Dr. 
 Mary H. Fulton (P. B. F. M. N.), Canton, China. 
 
 « " The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 108, 205. 
 
 5 " The Chinese will never be a clean people till they become a Christian people. 
 Superstition keeps the walls of the home black and grimy with the smoke of gener- 
 ations, because white is an unlucky color, and hence there is Uttle whitewashing in- 
 doors. Superstition peoples the house with evil spirits, and too much displacing of 
 furniture and sweeping of corners is disturbing and worrying to the spirits, and bound 
 to be followed with evil results. No public sanitation will ever be undertaken until 
 Christian unselfishness takes hold of the Chinese. Now it is every man for him- 
 self. He casts the dirt out of his home or yard and throws it on the common high- 
 way. Who cares if others are inconvenienced or injured by it? "—Rev. J. G. Fagg 
 (Ref. C. A.), Amoy, China. 
 
 " Your enquiry as to sanitary conditions is amusing to one who has lived for more 
 than thirty years in a land where sanitation is unknown. The narrow, densely 
 crowded streets and courts of this city; its moat, the convenient receptacle of all 
 manner of abominations, emptied once » year just at the season when most harm 
 aoi be done by the process; the fetid pools, whose stench fills the air durmg the 
 
224 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 deadly results of the defiance of all sanitary laws.i We could still trace 
 in Africa and the isles of the Pacific the signs of the same insanitary 
 foulness which is almost universal in the heathen world. A striking 
 result of the investigation would be to convince us that "cleanliness 
 is next to godliness," and that Christianity, in cooperation with sanitary 
 regulations, has a cleansing mission of colossal magnitude in the world. 
 
 7. Lack of Public Spirit.— One of the most subtle characteristics 
 
 of heathenism is the absence of a humanizing sympathy, that is, a 
 
 sympathy which is not indifferent to human wel- 
 
 The enthronement of fare. In its social relations and activities this broad 
 
 selfishness. ^nd generous interest in the common good is known 
 
 as pubhc spirit. Selfishness is a deep and regnant 
 
 law in non-Christian society. Even within the precincts of Christian 
 
 civilization an interest in the general welfare sufliciently assertive to act 
 
 as a practical stimulus to sacrifice and service is none too common, and 
 
 is recognized as a very choice and noble quality in pubhc and private 
 
 life.2 Outside of Christendom "every man for himself" is the rule 
 
 pretty much everywhere. The restraints and requirements of law remedy 
 
 summer heat ; and the myriads of graves, many of them with half-buried coffins, 
 upon the neighboring plain— these and the hke are the surroundings of a population 
 among which typhus and other infectious diseases are of course endemic, but which 
 has never known anything better."— Rev. Jonathan Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, 
 China. 
 
 " In China sanitation is simply ignored; what with filthy personal habits, the 
 absence of practical sewerage provisions, open cesspools, and lack of quarantine 
 measures against infection, the wonder is that any Chinamen survive."— Rev. W. P. 
 Chalfant (P. B. F. M. N.), Ichowfu, Shantung, China. 
 
 1 " The invincible uncleanness of the people, joined to the fatalist's indifference 
 to ordinary precautions against disease, is at the root of the cholera question. It is 
 true that there might be no cholera at all in Egypt but for the ghastly sacrifice of 
 thousands of animals during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The result is myriads 
 of decomposing carcasses, which form the happy hunting-ground of the cholera 
 microbe, whence he rises like a giant refreshed to open his campaign in all parts of 
 the world to which the Muslim Hajji returns, bringing his baccilline sheaves with 
 him."—" The Cholera in Egypt," in The National Observer, June 6, 1896. 
 
 2 The Outlook, in a recent editorial on what it calls " The Crimes of Good Men," 
 contains the following paragraph : 
 
 " The source of nearly all the evils with which the lover of his country and his 
 fellow-man must contend is the passive attitude of good men toward public affairs. 
 Very good men frequently lack that sense of responsibility which ought to be the in- 
 heritance of all right-minded citizens of a republic. If every man were alive to his 
 duty ai a citizen, the political corruption of the present day would be impossible." 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 225 
 
 the evil results of this spirit in some measure, but there are certain 
 respects in which it is left wholly free, with no one to challenge its 
 injurious tendencies. It is this heedless unconcern for the public good 
 which makes nearly every street in the villages, larger towns, and cities of 
 Asia under native, as distinguished from European rule, simply an elon- 
 gated cesspool or a common dumping-ground of filth, breeding disease and 
 death. It is this universal spirit of " passing by on the other side " and 
 refusing to recognize the obligations of neighborhood, much less of com- 
 mon humanity, which is the explanation of such absurd and shameful ras- 
 cality as often characterizes the treatment of those who are in trouble in 
 China. The Rev. Arthur Smith, in his " Chinese Characteristics," re- 
 marks : " Unwillingness to give help to others, unless there is some special 
 reason for doing so, is a trait that runs through Chinese social relations in 
 multifold manifestations. The general omission to do anything for the 
 relief of the drowning strikes every foreigner in China." The same 
 spirit is shown also, as he further remarks, " in a general callousness to 
 the many cases of distress which are to be seen almost everywhere, espe- 
 cially along lines of travel. It is a common proverb that to be poor 
 at home is not to be counted as poverty, but to be poor when on the 
 highroad away from home will cost a man his life."i 
 
 A special chapter in " Chinese Characteristics " is entitled " The 
 Absence of Public Spirit," in which many instances are given reveaUng 
 the indifference to the common welfare which prevails in China.'^ In 
 
 1 " It is in travelling in China that the absence of helpful kindness on the part of 
 the people towards strangers is perhaps most conspicuous. When the summer rains 
 have made all land-travel almost impossible, he virhose circumstances make travel a 
 necessity will find that ' heaven, earth, and man ' are a threefold harmony in com- 
 bination against him. No one will inform him that the road which he has taken 
 will presently end in a quagmire. If you choose to drive into a morass, it is no 
 business of the contiguous taxpayers. We have spoken of the neglect of Chinese 
 highways. When the traveller has been plunged into one of the sloughs with which 
 all such roads at certain seasons abound, and finds it impossible to extricate himself, 
 a great crowd of persons will rapidly gather from somewhere, ' their hands in their 
 sleeves, and idly gazing,' as the saying goes. It is not until a definite bargain has 
 been made with them that any one of these bystanders, no matter how numerous, 
 will lift a finger to help one in any particular. Not only so, but it is a constant 
 practice on such occasions for the local rustics to dig deep pits in difficult places, 
 with the express purpose of trapping the traveller, that he may be obliged to employ 
 these same rustics to help the traveller out! When there is any doubt as to the road 
 in such places, one might as well plunge forward, disregarding the cautions of those 
 native to the spot, since one can never be sure that the directions given are not 
 designed to hinder rather than help."— Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," pp. 208, 
 209. 
 
 2 Ibid,, chap. xiii. 
 
226 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the original edition of the book, pubhshed at Shanghai, is a chapter on 
 " The Absence of Altruism," which has been omitted in the American 
 
 edition. Its contents only emphasize the subject 
 
 LaUaeg-faire the social in hand. The tendencies of this same spirit are also 
 
 law of China. manifested in the prevalent habit of trespass upon 
 
 the rights of the weaker members of society by 
 those who are strong. " The misery of the poor in China is their pov- 
 erty and their inability to hft themselves out of it, since if they cannot 
 do it themselves it will not be done at all." The North China Herald, 
 a prominent journal published at Shanghai, in a recent editorial on the 
 war with Japan, traces the weakness of China to the latter's regnant 
 selfishness. Each individual, considerinjr only his own interests, is in- 
 different as to what happens to his neighbors or his country. " Patriot- 
 ism, national pride, esprit de corps," it remarks, " are all unknown, and, what 
 is worse, undesired in the Celestial Empire. . . . The dynasty may be 
 overthrown and kings may come and kings may go, but so long as the 
 Chinese official can continue to get hold of the dollar he is serenely 
 indifferent to any crisis which may be convulsing the political world." 
 The instinctive egoism of primitive savagery still pervades the bar- 
 baric life of the present day,i and if public spirit is so slow in develop- 
 ing even in the atmosphere of the highest civilization, surely we cannot 
 expect that it will ripen quickly and yield a generous harvest where the 
 promptings of selfishness are so powerful and so free from restraint. 
 
 8. Mutual Suspicion.— Social hfe involves such a web of personal 
 
 contact and interdependence, and is so based upon general confidence 
 
 between man and man, that mutual suspicion, if it 
 
 Confidence as a social prevails to any extent, becomes a solvent of the 
 
 *""'*■ very bonds which link society together. Public 
 
 confidence is only another term for financial and 
 
 industrial stability. Private confidence of man in man is the secret 
 
 of contentment and security and an essential of social development. 
 
 1 " Selfishness is one of the most prominent characteristics of heathenism. The 
 chiefs took the best things for themselves, and tabooed the common people from 
 sharing in them. This extended even to good drinking-water. The sacred men and 
 owners of certain parts of the beach tabooed the sea except to their own special 
 friends. If the taboo was broken the transgressors had to pay the penalty by mak- 
 ing a feast. When they could not agree in their disputes regarding ownership of 
 fruit-trees, they cut them down, so that no one would receive any benefit from them. 
 They took advantage of inland natives coming to take salt water from the sea for 
 cooking purposes, and compelled them to pay for it." — Rev. William Gunn, M.D. 
 (F. C. S.), Futuna, New Hebrides. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 227 
 
 Mutual suspicion begets timidity, and prevents that frank and free 
 Interchange so necessary to prosperity and mutual helpfulness. Dis- 
 trust is, however, one of the most universal sentiments which govern 
 the intercourse of man with man in the heathen world. Men fear one 
 another because they know one another, and they recognize the fact 
 that there is ground for misgivings. The effect is depressing and para- 
 lyzing. Every one is alert, cautious, and on the defensive. The Chi- 
 nese, for example, are especially suspicious ; the Koreans are like them ; 
 and the Japanese, although not to the same extent, are yet wary and 
 watchful. Some ulterior and secret motive of a dark and scheming, 
 or at least a doubtful, character is usually taken for granted by Orien- 
 tals in their dealings with one another. It is hard for them to believe 
 in the simplicity and genuine disinterestedness of any one. Nothing 
 is looked upon as square, upright, and open ; it is more likely to be 
 crooked, cunning, and deceitful, or at least to have some concealed 
 design. The atmosphere is full of suspicions, which put a painful con- 
 straint upon social and personal relations, and add immensely to the 
 difficulties of frank and friendly contact with one another. 
 
 In China the officials are mutually distrustful, perhaps with good 
 reason, since each one either knows or suspects that the other is a rascal. 
 The Tsung-li Yamen eye one another with caution 
 and reserve, and they all look upon the foreigner Every man his own 
 with the most lively distrust. No mandarin can detective in China, 
 be seen with a foreigner, or accept his hospitality, 
 without immediately falling under grave suspicion. Sinister designs and 
 portentous conspiracies are always in the air, and it is this deep-rooted 
 distrust and hatred which make the life of the foreigner so full of inse- 
 curity in China. The effect of this gnawing suspicion is especially 
 manifest in Chinese domestic life and in all relations between the sexes.^ 
 The real reason for any course of action is rarely accepted as the true one. 
 
 1 " There is no social life in China as we understand that term. Men do not trust 
 the prudence, honesty, or virtue of women in general (though there is a great deal 
 of genuine virtue among Chinese women), and women cannot trust men's truth or 
 honor. Therefore there is no commingling of men and women, young or old, for 
 social intercourse outside the family. In all their festivities, whether at weddings 
 or other occasions, the men and women always feast in separate apartments and never 
 meet one another during their stay. There are no concerts, lectures, or other enter- 
 tainments, except the open-air theatres. Middle-aged and elderly women and little 
 girls attend these freely, under proper escort, but the women are all seated by them- 
 selves on the outskirts of the crowd. Even in their religious associations men have 
 their own societies and women have theirs, and these societies have nothing whatever 
 in common, not even worshipping together in the temples."— Mrs. C. W. Mateer 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Tungchow, China. 
 
228 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 If another is not apparent, one must be invented. The Rev. Arthur 
 Smith, writing upon " Mutual Suspicion " in " Chinese Characteristics " 
 (chap, xxiv.), gives many illustrations to indicate the spirit of Chinese 
 intercourse. They seek protection from one another, and are continu- 
 ally on guard lest they should be taken by surprise. The wondrous and 
 mischievous character of Chinese gossip arises largely from the morbid 
 intensity of their suspicions. Chinese family life is often clouded and 
 irritated by this inveterate distrust. A stranger in a Chinese village 
 gives occasion for the most lively solicitude as to who he is, what his 
 business is, and what he purposes to do. If he arrives after dark he 
 will often find that no one will come out of the house to meet or direct 
 him. The effect of this temper in society is to render it exceedingly 
 difficult to establish any new enterprise or undertake anything which is 
 out of the ordinary line. Something dark and dreadful must be back 
 of it all in the opinion of the wary Chinaman. 
 
 In India it is exceedingly difficult for natives to cooperate with one 
 another on account of mutual distrust.^ Even philanthropic effort is 
 
 often misunderstood and viewed with suspicion. 
 
 The distrustful spirit of I" Persia the r61e of deceit and venality has be- 
 
 Orientai society. comc SO commouplacc that the people have lost 
 
 all confidence in one another.* Among savages 
 in the South Seas there is constant apprehension of evil designs on the 
 part of some one. They live a life of disquietude, and the shadow of 
 distrust clouds every relationship. Says Dr. Chalmers, in " Work and 
 Adventure in New Guinea": "The state of fear of one another in 
 which the savage lives is truly pitiful. To him every stranger seeks' 
 his life, and so does every other savage." In Africa it is difficult to 
 convince a native that any one dies a natural death, so prevalent is the 
 suspicion of evil designs. Poisoning is so much feared that the people 
 are exceedingly loath to eat in one another's houses.* Even the kings 
 and chiefs are accustomed not to touch their food until either the one 
 who has cooked it, or others appointed for the purpose, have partaken 
 of it. It is not at all uncommon for one who gives food to another to 
 eat part of it himself in order to prove that it contains nothing hiurtful.* 
 The African Kaffir " breathes an atmosphere of suspicion and jealousy 
 in which freedom cannot live."^ "We never trust one another," re- 
 
 1 The Indian Magazine and Review, March, 1896, p. 148. 
 
 2 Wilson, " Persian Life and Customs," p. 231. 
 
 ' Ingham, " Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years," p. 315. 
 
 * Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," p. 190. 
 
 * Slowan, " The Story of Our Kaflrarian Mission," p. 24. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 229 
 
 marked one of the Hovas to a recent correspondent of The Times 
 (London) in Madagascar, and the same statement might be made by a 
 man of almost any Asiatic or African nationahty. The social effect of 
 these brooding misgivings is to make mutual intercourse reserved, con- 
 strained, and wary, while, on the other hand, frank and open confidence 
 gives assurance, courage, and cheerfulness to men, and adds to the 
 happiness and prosperity of society. 
 
 9. Poverty. — The problem of poverty is an old one in the eco- 
 nomic life of man. The struggle to live has been ceaseless. Slowly and 
 surely man has added other resources to the or- 
 dinary products which nature supplies for his sup- xhe ceaseless struggle 
 port, and has utilized her forces and cultivated her ^°' survival, 
 
 fnictifpng powers for his maintenance and com- 
 fort. The great difference between the abundant economic harvests 
 of modern material civilization, so fruitful in provisions for human 
 needs, and the pinched and meagre resources of early civilization, is 
 due in large part to man's power over nature and his ability to subsidize 
 her capabilities and extract her hidden wealth. The belated civilization 
 of the non- Christian world is still in various stages of ignorance and 
 incompetence as regards the mastery over nature and the intelligent use 
 of her productive capacities. This is especially true so far as the mod- 
 em industrial plant is concerned, and all those processes of developing 
 and utilizing nature's generous resources which have been brought about 
 by the inventive genius and the economic enterprise of modem times. 
 
 This backward status is due not only to ignorance and the disabil- 
 ities of primitive environment, but to the working of oppression and 
 injustice, on the one hand, and, on the other, to 
 the influence of prejudice, obstinacy, inertia, pride, . , 
 
 ^ ■' ' •" \ The genesiE of poverty. 
 
 incapacity, shiftlessness, the power of custom, and 
 general heedlessness as to better modes of living. 
 The result is that an awful status of poverty has weighted a large sec- 
 tion of heathen society, and holds it prostrate in helpless and hopeless 
 indigence. Dependence upon agricultural and pastoral resources, even 
 if man escapes the ravages of war and pillage, is destined as popula- 
 tion increases either to become a scant reliance or to fail altogether, so 
 that the history of uncivilized man, and even of races with tolerably 
 advanced methods, has been, and is still, often marked by a long and 
 desperate struggle for livehhood or in many instances even for a meagre 
 subsistence. Christianity as an agency for the teaching of saving moral 
 
230 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 principles, the production of a higher order and system in life, the cvil- 
 tivation of broader intelligence, the humanizing of law, the protection 
 of property rights, the introduction of science, the establishment of 
 philanthropy, the awakening of aspiration, the kindling of hope, and 
 the heralding of a new and progressive era among uncivilized man, has 
 a truly helpful mission in the material betterment of society. In co- 
 operation with commerce, economic science, and modem industrial 
 facilities, it will do much to mitigate the sorrows of poverty, and provide 
 a remedy for the suifering and despair which penury produces among 
 races where there is little or no relief from its grinding miseries. 
 
 Where the struggle for the support of life is intense and prolonged, 
 yielding at best only a sustenance, and often only the daily bread neces- 
 sary to sustain life, with now and then a tempo- 
 The social import of Tary failure which threatens starvation, as is the 
 poverty. ^ase in China, and would be still in India were it 
 
 not for governmental assistance, poverty becomes 
 a social evil of portentous and gloomy import. It puts society into a 
 state of distress and helplessness, in which life becomes a desperate and 
 exhaustitig slavery to daily need. This struggle for existence may contain 
 in an important sense the potency of evolutionary progress, but after it 
 has gone on for centuries with little revelation of its power to alleviate 
 and benefit, one longs for some outside help from a source which will 
 give a new impetus to life, bring more hope and security, provide more 
 sane and effective remedies, and lift the shadows of despair. This is 
 one of the many reasons why the introduction of Christianity and 
 modern civihzation into China, and in fact throughout the non-Chris- 
 tian world, is a noble and beneficent undertaking. Once introduced 
 there, it will become a saving power, as it has been in Christendom ; 
 not that it will at once banish poverty, but that it will provide many 
 remedial forces and introduce many alleviating instrumentahties. It 
 will at least give a helping hand to many who in their extremity are 
 now without aid. It will tend also to break up that colossal system of 
 pauperism which is incidental, more or less, to all false religious sys- 
 tems, and is so burdensome to the people, imder the guise and sanction 
 of priestly requirement, ceremonial obligation, or ascetic practice. Half 
 the pauperism of the non-Christian world is religious, and a large section 
 besides makes its plea in the name of religion, and so plays upon super- 
 Ptj'tious fears as to gain a ready hearing and impose large exactions. In 
 this connection, however, we are not concerned so much with the ex- 
 planation of this state of poverty as with the reality and extent of its 
 existence and its social results. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 231 
 
 India is perhaps, more than other non-Christian lands, the home of 
 poverty.. This is due to the immense population, which has increased 
 for centuries within the fixed geographical limits 
 of the peninsula, taxing its agricultural resources i„<,ia-.s recurring 
 to the utmost. At the same time a burden of so- misery, 
 
 cial and religious customs, far more expensive than 
 the people can support, has rested upon them.i The result of this two- 
 fold impoverishment has been the most grinding poverty among almost 
 the entire rural population of India. If, as sometimes happens, the 
 rains fail, and with them the harvests, the people are plunged into the 
 extremities of famine. No more pathetic and dreadful scenes of star- 
 vation have been witnessed than those which characterized some of the 
 great famines of Indian history.2 Even as late as the famine of 1 868-7 o 
 in Rajputana 1,250,000 people perished.' A century or so ago there 
 were famines which destroyed miUions of the people.* Mr. John Ehot, 
 
 1 " The Rev. C. B. Ward, of the American Methodist Episcopal Mission, has 
 prepared a table of statistics showing some of the details and causes of the poverty 
 prevailing among the working classes within the dominions of H. H. the Nizam of 
 Hyderabad. These figures are the result of thirteen years of careful observation 
 and diligent study of the subject in close contact with the people. These statistics 
 show, concerning the direct cost of heathenism per annum, that, out of every Rs 100 
 earned, Rs 36 go for heathen rites and bad or useless habits. If any one questions 
 this, the figures can be produced. Is it a wonder that such a people is called poor? " 
 — The Baptist Missionary Review (Madras), January, 1896, p. 38. 
 
 2 " There cannot be the slightest doubt that famines and epidemics were far more 
 frequent and destructive in former centuries than at present. Allusions to terrible 
 famines occur in ancient Hindu writings. The Ramayana mentions a severe and 
 prolonged drought which occurred in Northern India. According to the Orissa 
 legends, severe famines occurred between the years 1107 and 1143 a.d. The mem- 
 ory of a terrible twelve years' famine, ' Dvadasavarsha Panjam,' lives in tradition in 
 Southern India. Duff, in his history of the Mahrattas, states that ' in 1396 the 
 dreadful famine, distinguished from all others by the name " Durga Devee," com- 
 menced in Maharashtra. It lasted, according to Hindu legends, for twelve years. 
 At the end of that time the periodical rains returned ; but whole districts were en- 
 tirely depopulated, and a very scanty revenue was obtained from the territory between 
 the Godavari and the Kistna for upwards of thirty years afterwards.' "— Raghavai- 
 yangar, " The Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty Years," 
 p. 4. 
 
 For account of other famines, consult ibid., pp. 6, 27, 31, 36, 42. 
 
 * Robson, " The Story of the Rajputana Mission," p. 40. 
 
 * " The following is an account of the famine in Bengal last century: 
 
 " ' All through the hot season the people went on dying. The husbandmen sold 
 their cattle ; they sold their implements of agriculture ; they devoured their seed- 
 grain ; they sold their sons and daughters, till at length no buyer of children could 
 be found; they ate the leaves of the trees and the grass of the field, and in June it 
 
232 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in a recently published volume on Indian Famines, states that there 
 have been seventeen within one hundred and twenty-two years. The 
 total mortality of these calamities, extending over centuries, is something 
 appalling. In 1832-33, Madras, one of the districts affected, lost from 
 150,000 to 200,000 inhabitants out of a total population of 500,000. 
 In 1837, in Upper India there were at least 800,000 victims. In 
 1860-61, in the Northwest Provinces and the Punjab, 500,000 human 
 beings perished. In 1865-66, in Orissa alone 1,000,000 people died 
 out of a total population of 3,000,000.1 These awful visitations have 
 greatly increased the prevalence of leprosy throughout India. The 
 Leprosy Commission in 1890-91 expressed the conviction that "the 
 greater the poverty of a district, the more prone the latter is toward 
 leprosy." ^ It is also one of the causes of child labor, so detrimental 
 at the tender age at which it is exacted by so many of the poor in 
 India.3 
 
 The British Government has now established a system of famine 
 
 relief, or rather prevention, which makes past scenes of suffering no 
 
 longer possible ; but it cannot, of coiu-se, do more 
 
 The beneficent efforts than save the people from extremities. As regards 
 
 ofthe British Gov- , . ,. . , ^. 
 
 eminent. theu" Condition of poverty, it is still distressing. 
 
 The rule among the vast agricultural population 
 of the Indian villages is that they live upon what is sufficient for sus- 
 tenance, or little more. A careful estimate based upon the census 
 shows that there are multitudes who have not more than from six to 
 twelve rupees a year for support. The mean annual income of the 
 people of India is from twenty to twenty-seven rupees, equivalent at 
 the present rates of silver in India to about six to eight dollars.* Among 
 the resolutions offered and passed at the Indian National Congress of 
 Madras, 1894, was one bearing upon the problem of poverty, introduced 
 by Mr. Seymour Keay, M.P., in which it was urged that " this Congress, 
 concurring in the views set forth in previous Congresses, affirms that 
 fully 50,000,000 of the population, a number yearly increasing, are 
 dragging out a miserable existence on the verge of starvation, and that 
 
 was reported that the living were feeding on the dead. Two years after the dearth 
 Warren Hastings made a progress through Bengal, and he states the loss to have 
 been at least one third of the inhabitants, or probably about 10,000,000 of people. 
 Nineteen years later, Lord Cornwallis reported that one third of Bengal was a jungle 
 inhabited only by wild beasts.' "— " Pictorial Tour round India,'' pp. 33, 34. 
 1 See The Literary Digest, December 7, 1895, " Famines in India." 
 ' " Report of the Leprosy Commission in India, 1890-91," p. 98. 
 * Satthianadhan, " The History of Education in the Madras Presidency," p. 7- 
 « " Report of the Tenth Indian National Congress, Held at Madras, 1894," p. 20. 
 
A Typical Group from one of the Indian Hill Tribes. 
 
 Victims of an Indian Famine, Madras, 1877. 
 
 Scenes in India. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 233 
 
 in every decade several millions actually perish by starvation; and 
 humbly m-ges once more that immediate steps be taken to remedy this 
 calamitous state of afiEairs." ^ Sir William Hunter is authority for the 
 statement that 40,000,000 (that is, about one sixth part of the popula- 
 tion of India) go through life upon insufficient food.^ The address of 
 Mr. Keay in support of the resolution is full of startUng statements as 
 to the deep social misery which Indian poverty inflicts upon the people. 
 Dr. Uhl, in an account of a missionary tour in 1895, in which he visited 
 one hundred and eight Indian villages, speaks of the poverty of the 
 people as "a bondage kilUng the soul." The subject has been fully 
 and ably treated in a very recent volume entitled " The Poverty Prob- 
 lem in India," by Prithwis Chandra Ray, published in Calcutta. He 
 states substantially the same facts that have been given above. At the 
 present time (November, 1896) a serious famine seems imminent in the 
 Central and Northwest Provinces. The Government is already opening 
 relief works, and with the greatly increased railway facilities of the 
 country at its command, can with energy and promptitude do much 
 to alleviate the distress. 
 
 In the teeming Empire of China, with all its vast natural resources, 
 its extensive agricultural labors, the industry and frugality of its people, 
 there is still a state of poverty widely prevalent, 
 which threatens the immediate destruction of vast Chinese poverty and 
 multitudes in case there is the slightest failure in "" <=»"«»• 
 
 ordinary production.^ The Rev. Timothy Rich- 
 ard, of Shanghai, remarked at a pubhc meeting in Peking, October 18, 
 J 895, that " there has been deep poverty arid intense suffering in China 
 for years " ; and he estimates that " from three to four millions die every 
 year of hunger." Instructive facts are also given by the same author 
 in a powerful article on " China's AppaUing Need of Reform." *■ In 
 the midst of their poverty, when distress deepens, no temporary financial 
 
 1 " Report of the Tenth Indian National Congress, Held at Madras, 1894," p. 47. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 49. 
 
 ' " The awful poverty of this people is at the root of nearly all the evils with 
 which society is afflicted. This poverty is due in some small measure to the density 
 of the population, and yet to no great extent, for China is not so overcrowded as 
 some of the more prosperous parts of Europe. Neither is China poor because she 
 is lacking in mineral wealth or agricultural products; for in these she is better fur- 
 nished than any other country in the world, owing to the vast extent of her territory 
 in a temperate zone. Her poverty is directly traceable to governmental weakness, 
 to the oppression of her rulers, and to her lack of progress in education."-Rev. 
 J. C. Ferguson (M. E. M. S.), Nanking, China. 
 
 « Chinese Recorder, November, 1894; also pubUshed in "The China Mission 
 Hand-Book," Shanghai, 1896, pp. 84-90. 
 
234 CHiasriAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 relief can be obtained, except at an exorbitant rate of interest, stated 
 by Mr. Richard to be at least thirty per cent., and sometimes reaching 
 one hundred per cent. He traces to the exigencies of poverty the re- 
 curring attempts at rebellion and the formation of so many secret so- 
 cieties. He refers to the fact that the name of Pharaoh is execrated 
 because he threatened the extinction of two or three millions of the 
 children of Israel, while in China " there is a greater number actually 
 starved every year, and ten times that number exterminated every ten 
 years." 
 
 In an article by the Rev. A. G. Jones, of the English Baptist Mis- 
 sion, on " The Poverty of Shantung : Its Causes and Treatment," after 
 referring to the poverty-stricken condition of the great mass of the 
 population of that province, amounting in all to 30,000,000, the bearing 
 of this fact upon their social status, and its influence as a hindrance to 
 all progress, he proceeds to show that this status is in part due to the 
 excessive proportion of economic expenditure necessary for the sup- 
 port of a Chinaman, as compared with that which obtains in Western 
 nations. The rent of his land (the article refers especially to Shantung 
 Province) is eight or nine per cent, on its value, as compared with three 
 per cent, in Great Britain, France, and Germany. The money which 
 he borrows on his land as security costs him about twenty-two per cent, 
 annual interest, while in England it can be obtained at an annual in- 
 terest of from four to five per cent. His land yields ordinarily about 
 ten bushels of wheat an acre, or in the very best years about thirteen 
 and a quarter, as compared with twenty-eight bushels to the acre in 
 England. While recognizing the fact that natural causes have some- 
 thing to do with the existence of poverty, he considers that their in- 
 fluence is small as compared with other causes which are in large 
 measure preventable.^ He names as chief among these ignorance, 
 especially of the methods of industrial success, the hampering power of 
 superstition, the prevalence of trickery and injustice, the extortions of 
 the Government,^ especially the " squeezing " which results from the 
 
 • " This province of course suffers from obviously natural and unpreventable 
 causes of poverty, the same as other provinces, such as drought, locusts, excessive 
 rains, excessive wind, hail, and succession of bad harvests. Regarding this class of 
 causes there is practically nothing to be said at this stage- of things. The great 
 poverty of the masses has causes, however, altogether different from these, and quite 
 discernible. They are to be found in the intellectual, spiritual, and moral state of 
 the Chinese, in their governmental system, and in their social constitution and prin- 
 ciples."— The Rev. A. G. Jones (E. B. M. S.), in The Chinese Recorder, April, 
 1894, p. 187. 
 
 * " The condition of the people in China, especially in the northern part, is 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OP THE NON-CHRISTlAN WORLD 235 
 
 system of farming the taxes, the existence of bad roads, making distri- 
 bution and exchange of commodities difficult, costly, and slow, cumbrous 
 ciurency, and extortionate rates of interest, combined vith antiquated 
 appliances and slovenly management. An interesting aspect of the 
 paper referred to treats of the bearing of missionary labors in their 
 broader results as in a large and true sense remedial in their workings 
 even in the realm of economic life.^ 
 
 In his volume on " The Real Chinaman," Mr. Chester Holcombe 
 has a chapter on " The Poor in China," in which he remarks that the 
 status of poverty there differs from that of Western 
 lands in that it usually means " actual hunger and The sufferings of the 
 nakedness, if not starvation within sight." He poor in China, 
 describes in considerable detail the condition of 
 the Chinese poor and the extent of their extremity .^ The Rev. Paul 
 Bergen, of Chefoo, China, in a recent article refers to the distressing 
 poverty of the people as one of the great difficulties of missionary 
 work.' The facts previously stated go far to explain the frequency 
 and seriousness of Chinese famines. They may come either as the 
 result of a flood or of a scant grain-supply, or may be produced by any 
 one of many contingencies. " China's Sorrow " is the title of a chapter 
 by Mr. R. S. Gundry in his recent volume on China. The reference 
 is to the Yellow River and the fearful devastation of its floods. Mr. 
 
 wretched beyond description. Many of them seem to live all their lives in a state 
 of semi-starvation. Several causes contribute and combine to produce this extreme 
 poverty among the people; one of the most potent is the extortion of the rulers. 
 Trade in many places would thrive and prosper, new forms of industry would spring 
 up, and in course of time become productive of great wealth, were they allowed a 
 natural growth ; but these are all strangled in their infancy by the*rapacious officials. 
 These rulers become wonderfully expert in devising new methods of oppressing the 
 people. Oh, the grinding poverty of the poor Chinese! "—Letter from the late Rev. 
 J. A. Leyenberger (P. B. F. M. N.), Wei Hien, China. 
 
 1 The Chinese Recorder, April and May, 1894. 
 
 2 Holcombe, " The Real Chinaman," chap. xiv. 
 
 * " Then the awful poverty of the people. No one can know what that means 
 who has not delved and grubbed and worked his way into the inner life of the people, 
 spending days and nights with them, and seeing repeatedly their common meals dur- 
 ing seasons fat and lean. This is a bran-eating, not a flour-eating, people with which 
 we have to do — a grass-eating and root-eating people. They live practically without 
 meat. Should there be unhappy demise of cow or mule, dog or donkey, through 
 accident or tuberculosis or general decrepitude, there is a neighborhood feast. They 
 eat occasionally of wheat bread, bny a bit of pork, have a bowl of vegetables, a few 
 ounces of salt fish, but just about as often as the ordinary American citizen indulges 
 in terrapin or canvas-back ducks."— y,*; Church at Home and Abroad, February, 
 1896, pp. 138, 139. 
 
236 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Gundry's volume has instructive chapters on the progress and resources 
 of China.i These famines are so common that only great calamities 
 attract attention and obtain notice.^ " Ten millions in one province 
 of China," writes Dr. March, "perished for want of food and from 
 diseases that follow in the wake of famine. A sUght change in the 
 rainfall for a single season will at any time strew the fields and path- 
 ways of the East with the skeletons of multitudes who die of want and 
 of the pestilence which comes to glean in the fields where death has 
 already gathered the harvest of milhons of sheaves and left nothing 
 but stubble behind." ^ Even in ordinary times the desolations of an 
 unheralded, almost unnoticed, famine attain the magnitude of a 
 calamity. Poverty is the cause, no doubt, of the throngs of beggars 
 who roam through China in their rags and filth and desperate wretched- 
 ness.* Truly one of the social miseries of China is its poverty. 
 
 In Korea, although there is widespread poverty, strange to state 
 there is said to be no beggar class as in China, owing to the generous 
 disposition of the people to aid one another. Ko- 
 Poverty in Korea and I'ean hospitality is proverbial.^ These kindly cus- 
 japan. toms open the door to grave abuses, and the well- 
 
 to-do are forced into positions where they are 
 obliged, whether willing or not, to help the improvident, who are not 
 lacking, also, in a readiness to impose upon kindness. The causes of 
 Korean poverty are stated by Mr. Hillier, the British Consul-General 
 at Seoul, and are summarized in The Messenger of Shanghai.* In Japan 
 
 1 Gundry, " China Present and Past," pp. 85-199. 
 
 2 " Famine refugees! But this is not a famine year? No, not a year of great 
 famine. But in China, where the great bulk of the population live from hand to 
 mouth, and are dependent entirely upon the product of the soil, there are small famines 
 every year." — Rev. Frederick W. Jackson (P. B. F. M. N.), formerly of Chefoo. 
 
 3 March, " Morning Light in Many Lands," p. 156. 
 
 * ' ' Oh, these beggars ! In the merest kennels of straw huts, or under a slight 
 shelter of straw or bamboo, or just on the bare ground, they lay in their rags and 
 wretchedness, men, women, and children, exhibiting open sores, maimed, deformed, 
 and twisted limbs, footless and handless stumps, bleared and sightless eyeballs, 
 whole limbs and faces one mass of corruption, a twisted arm hanging loose at the 
 elbow and swinging around in sickening gyrations — in a word, one might almost say, 
 every conceivable form of bodily misery and moral wretchedness. It was the Chamber 
 of Horrors, rendered all the more awful and heart-sickening by the contrast with 
 the clear blue sky, the bright sunshine, the everlasting hills towering above us, 
 and the gentle, merry, musical little stream at our side."— Miss Augusta T. Graves 
 (P. B. r. M. S.), Hangchow, China, in The Missionary, February, 1895, pp. 82, 
 83. 
 
 ' The Korean Repository, September, 1895, p. 347; June, 1896, p. 253. 
 
 * " The causes of Korean poverty are succinctly stated by Mr. Hillier (British 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 237 
 
 the Struggle for existence is strenuous, although poverty is hardly more 
 general than in Western lands. A recent Japanese newspaper has called 
 attention to the fact that suicide has greatly increased of late, as high 
 as ten thousand cases a year having been reported. The same author- 
 ity traces this fact to the greater intensity of the struggle for life, in view 
 of the increased cost of living connected with the introduction of 
 Western civilization. It is reported that the poor are becoming more 
 numerous throughout Japan than was the case under the old r6gime. 
 In Persia there is much pitiful destitution, while in poor Turkey, as 
 the result of the cruel policy of the present Sultan, there is a reign of 
 agony and despair which appeals to the charities of the world. 
 
 In Africa the same story of poverty has been written large in the 
 history of savage tribes, with the dire miseries of famine recurring at 
 frequent intervals. The poor people seem to have 
 been swept off by the thousands and tens of thou- xhe horrors of African 
 sands, in circumstances of suffering which cannot famine, 
 
 be depicted. Even now there are the same ever- 
 recurring experiences in different sections of the vast continent, as in 
 Bechuanaland and Swaziland at the present moment. The terrible 
 famine in Bondei and Usagara has only just ceased from its ravages. 
 "A party of eight hundred natives," writes the Rev. Godfrey Dale, 
 under date of April 14, 1895, "had started for the coast to seek food 
 and work, but every one perished on the road." ^ In the Pacific Islands, 
 the West Indies, Mexico, and South America there is much extreme and 
 hopeless poverty. 
 
 Consnl-General), and are worth reproducing for the information of those who still 
 wonder why it is that the opening of this long-closed country has produced such 
 insignificant results. They are : first, want of native capital and the absence of sub- 
 stantial native merchants ; second, the exactions of the officials and the burdens laid 
 upon industry ; and lastly, the lack of energy displayed by the producing and labor- 
 ing classes, who feel that it is useless to produce more than is absolutely necessary 
 for their daily wants, as any surplus they might acquire would be seized by the of- 
 ficials. When it is remembered that every officer in this country has to be bought, 
 and that only members of the Nyang-han, or patrician class, can hold any but the 
 lowest posts, it is evident that no member of the trading class has even the induce- 
 ment to amass money for buying himself an official position and so raising himself 
 into the ranks of the aristocracy. Degrees of poverty, of course, exist, but it is 
 doubtful whether any member of the trading class has a capital to his name which 
 would meet the wants of the smallest shopkeeper at home, and it is a sine qua non 
 with a Korean that he must receive an advance of money before he will undertake 
 the execution of the most insignificant contract."— 7'/4<f Messenger (Shanghai), Jan- 
 nary, 1895, pp. 5, 6. 
 
 1 Central Africa, July, 1895, p. 107; The Church Missionary Intelligencer, 
 AprU, 1895, pp. 276, 277, 
 
238 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The result of our survey is only to confirm the saying of Christ, 
 " Ye have the poor always with you," which is true of all lands, even 
 those where wealth abounds and the best civilization which the world 
 has yet known is found. The pertinence of placing this subject among 
 the social evils of the non-Christian world arises from the severity and 
 extent of the poverty which exists, the misery it causes, the social de- 
 pression it produces, and the pathetic appeal it makes for the introduc- 
 tion of such remedies as Christianity and civilization can offer to alleviate 
 the sorrows of the poor. 
 
 lo. The Tyranny of Custom.— Customs are conventional meth- 
 ods of living and acting according to established precedents, which 
 
 have the power of habit and are generally recog- 
 An impersonal despot nizcd and observed throughout the community, 
 on an invincible throne. These laws of life include social manners, political 
 
 methods, economic habits, and religious obser- 
 vances. They exert their control not only in the sphere of practical 
 living, but extend their influence to the realm of thought and feeling. 
 They arise spontaneously, follow the leadings of instinct in their devel- 
 opment, and become the accepted, cherished, often revered, rules and 
 methods of social, civil, and religious habit. They control conduct 
 with varying power. In some cases they rule with despotic sway; 
 in others their demands may be somewhat relaxed. In all Oriental 
 lands they exert a wide, exacting, and even fatalistic power. They 
 wield the sceptre of arbitrary dominion over all life. They tyrannize 
 with an imperious and resistless sway, and hold their supreme authority 
 from one generation to another with undiminished rigor.^ They assume 
 over the life and thought of the East a governing and proscriptive 
 power which is most impressive in its mastery, so that they must be 
 
 1 " The authority of customs is found, in the first instance, in the feelings which 
 they express and gratify. They are a spontaneous product of the feelings. They 
 shortly, however, acquire an additional authority in the good order they establish, 
 the interests they sustain, the calculable terms of action which they offer. They thus 
 gather to themselves in a most imposing and imperious form all the motives and sen- 
 timents which unite men to one another. Any extensive dissolution of customs is a 
 breaking down of the affinities by which men are bound to each other — is social chaos. 
 
 " Customs are most potent with the ignorant. They in part take the place of 
 those moral motives which bind together the more thoughtful. Men of the widest 
 intelligence hold them in high consideration, but they do so because of the impossi- 
 bility of supplying their place with the uncultivated. They act in the absence of 
 higher motives. Boys are abjectly subject to the opinions and ways of their play- 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 239 
 
 reckoned with as a mighty, conservative, and determining force in all 
 efforts to introduce social changes or religious reforms. They exercise 
 a function which seems to combine constitutional, legislative, judicial, 
 and executive powers in one comprehensive control of all phases of life 
 and all points of contact between man and man, and even between man 
 and the material universe aroimd him, or the Supreme Power above him. 
 
 The East has so learned this lesson of reverence for and obedience 
 to customs that those which are evil and detrimental have just as firm 
 a hold upon men as those which are good and useful. An established 
 custom becomes, therefore, the open sesame of every otherwise closed 
 door. It is the arbiter of dispute ; it gives the word of command ; it 
 pronounces a verdict from which there is no appeal ; it surmounts 
 difficulty and it settles destiny ; it deals kindly with all who submit to 
 its decree, but it subdues and crushes all who venture to call in question 
 its wisdom or defy its authority. 
 
 It is evident that a social force of such binding and decisive power 
 may be of great benefit, or it may work untold injury. Unfortunately, 
 in the non-Christian world custom is at many cru- 
 cial points the greatest hindrance to social progress. The mysterious sway 
 It sanctions, establishes, and enforces that which of custom, 
 
 is to the infinite injury of society, and has the 
 power to oppose itself strenuously to all reform, and to stay the pro- 
 gress of all change for the better. The tyranny of custom is therefore 
 a fact of immense social import. It weighs heavily against Christianity, 
 against civilization, against all social reform and useful progress, and 
 is usually bitterly hostile to the entrance of liberal views and enlightened 
 methods, opposing with singular tenacity the establishment of more 
 cleanly, refined, and in every respect sane standards of living. It is 
 exceedingly difficult for those who are accustomed to Occidental inde- 
 pendence of thought and action to realize the smiting and tyrannizing 
 power of custom in the conservative, restricted social life of the East.i 
 
 mates. They secure no sufficient ground in reason from which to take up the labor 
 of resistance. 
 
 " Young men, journeymen, college students, show this disposition to submit to 
 prevalent irrational customs. The governing sentiments of these little worlds rest 
 on tradition. Their members oppose the unreasoned ways of the past to the better 
 methods that are coming to prevail in the wider world which encloses them. Customs 
 are thus the instinctive methods of restraint which overtake those otherwise ungov- 
 ernable—an anticipation of reason and an organic substitute for its deficiencies. "- 
 Bascom, " Social Theory," pp. 33, 34. 
 
 1 Sir Richard Burton once spent two months with the King of Dahomey, and m 
 conversation with Mr. James Anthony Froude spoke in favorable terms of the king 
 
240 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 It is especially difficult to understand the irrepressible sway of customs 
 in themselves narrowing, retarding, dehumanizing, and detrimental in 
 their tendencies. The giant system of caste in India is an illustration. 
 The customs of child marriage, of enforced widowhood, of sati, of 
 ascetic barbarities, of degrading superstitions, of inane ceremonies, and 
 of many other objectionable features of Indian life, are all of a kind 
 which one would think easy to overthrow when a better way was 
 shown ; but, on the contrary, the observance of the whole inflexible 
 routine of custom is the very point of strenuous insistence. It is the 
 breach, not the observance, of the custom which brings ignominy, sor- 
 row, and social ostracism.^ 
 
 So in the vast social organization of conservative China, from the 
 state functions of the Emperor to the binding of the tender feet of 
 some child victim, this dominance of customs is 
 China'. h.maEe to manifest. They cluster around birth, marriage, 
 established precedent, and death; they determine the downsitting and 
 uprising of all China; they regulate the eating, 
 drinking, and visiting; they dictate domestic, social, commercial, in- 
 dustrial, political, and religious manners and observances. A Chinese 
 must even be ill according to custom, and when he sins he must at 
 least avoid the crowning and unpardonable impertinence of presuming 
 to sin in some unusual way. Finally, when he dies custom seizes him 
 in its iron grip, and he goes to his ancestors with the conventional 
 funeral ceremonies which have been the torment and sorrow of the 
 living for centuries. 
 
 It would be impossible and altogether unnecessary to undertake to 
 review in detail the innumerable predilections and practices which hold 
 
 as a benevolent and, on the whole, enlightened savage. Mr. Fronde inquired why, 
 if the king was so benevolent, did he not alter the customs. Burton looked at him 
 in amazement and consternation, and said: "Alter the customs! Would you have 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury alter the liturgy? " See Froude, " English Seamen of 
 the Sixteenth Century," p. 37. 
 
 " The evils which afflict heathen society are found established in those very cus- 
 toms and habits which are like chains of iron fast bound round the bodies of those 
 who have blindly followed them for centuries." — Miss Emily H. Payne (A. B. 
 M. U.), Pegu, Burma. 
 
 1 ' I am not without my apprehensions that many among yon at the very sound 
 of the word ' custom ' will consider it sinful even to enquire if the change should take 
 place. There are others, again, who, though in their hearts they agree to the meas- 
 ure, have not the courage even to say that it should be adopted, only because it is 
 opposed to the customs of their country. Oh, what a miserable state of things is 
 this ! Custem is the supreme ruler in this country ; cnstom is the supreme instructor ; 
 the rule of custom is the paramoint rule ; the precept of custom is the paramount 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 241 
 
 sway in non-Christian society, to its detriment and degradation, since 
 they have already occupied a large share of our attention in the pres- 
 ent lecture. There are customs, to be sure, which are excellent and 
 deserve to be perpetuated; but in many cases, usually where the 
 tyranny is most exacting, they are a heritage of sorrow and misery, 
 bringing with them burdens heavy to bear, and hindrances to progress 
 difficult to overcome. What we are concerned to note just here is the 
 tyrannical sway of their influence in society, their power to shut out the 
 guiding light of truth and to stay the transforming entrance of a higher 
 and nobler civilization. We shall have something to say elsewhere of 
 missions as a power singularly effective in the gradual disintegration 
 and final overthrow of the despotic authority of evil customs. 
 
 n. Caste.— The social system known as caste, a word supposed 
 to be derived from casta, the Portuguese term for race, is so prominent 
 and important a featiu-e of Hindu society that its 
 consideration fixes our attention almost exclusively caste va-ms social 
 upon India. Social distinctions have existed more distinctions, 
 
 or less among all races. They are found in classic 
 and medieval society, where they are the outcome either of family rank 
 or political station, or are based upon the grade and character of oc- 
 cupation. Trade guilds were known in the Roman Empire, and also in 
 medieval Europe.^ Such social distinctions, if based upon qualities 
 which deserve recognition and respect, are inevitable, and do not neces- 
 sarily involve injustice, extinguish brotherhood, or destroy the natural 
 and friendly intercourse of man with man. The peculiarity of the 
 
 precept. What a mighty influence is thine, O custom! Inexpressible in words! 
 With what absolute sway dost thou rule over thy votaries ! Thou hast trampled 
 upon the Sastras, triumphed over virtue, and crushed the power of discriminating 
 right from wrong and good from evil."— Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, in a pamphlet 
 on " The Marriage of Hindu Widows." 
 
 "The grand characteristic of Hindu society is just its despotic character; its 
 customs and ordinances are so rigid and unbending that no freedom is allowed to the 
 individual. On every side he is hedged in by regulations and prescriptions, so that 
 he can only walk in the narrow rut which these lay down for him. As a necessary 
 consequence, the grand characteristic of the individual Hindu is his want of indi- 
 viduality—his want of a sense of personal responsibility and capability for indepen- 
 dent thought and action. The family, the community, the whole social organism, is 
 so prominent, so exacting, so absolute, that the individual in comparison is nothing." 
 —Rev. William Stevenson (F. C. S.), formerly of Madras. India. 
 
 1 Inge, " Society in Rome under the Caesars." See chapter on " Grades of 
 Society;" pp. iig-:7i. 
 
242 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Hindu system, however, is that it creates and insists upon mutually 
 exclusive orders or ranks of humanity, involving an inexorable status 
 of "repulsion between man and man," and that this conception is 
 carried to an extreme which produces among the higher castes an esti- 
 mate of the lower— and especially of all outcastes— which accords 
 them a position hardly superior, if indeed equal, to that of the brutes. 
 The whole system thus becomes simply an artificial and arbitrary device 
 for exalting one social class and degrading another, upon the basis of 
 purely imaginary distinctions so far as our common humanity is con- 
 cerned. 
 
 The origin of caste is involved in some obscurity. It is the opinion 
 of Dr. John Muir, a distinguished student of Sanscrit literature, and 
 
 of Professor Max MuUer, that in its remote 
 
 The origin of caste, and origin it is based upon differences of race, color, 
 
 its social significance, ^nd occupation. The fact that the vernacular 
 
 names by which the caste system is known in the 
 various languages of India are those which signify race, color, and oc- 
 cupation, and are usually fatalistic in their meaning, goes to support this 
 view. While this may be the true view of the remoter origin, it seems 
 certain that the caste system as developed in India is the creation of 
 Hinduism at the hands of the Brahmans ^ or their immediate predeces- 
 sors known by the similar title of Rishas. It is thus a product of 
 Brahmanical legislation, and in its developed form may be regarded 
 as an evolution culminating in a giant system of ranks and orders, in 
 which humanity is separated and labelled, and to each is given a fixed 
 place in the social organism.^ These distinctions are, for the most 
 
 1 " The whole caste system as it has come down to ns bears unmistakable evi- 
 dence of Brahmanical origin." See " Madras Census Report for 1871," pp. 122, 123. 
 
 ^ " Hinduism is a social organization and a religious confederacy. As a social 
 organization it rests upon caste, with its roots deep down in the ethnical elements of 
 the Indian people. As a religious confederacy it represents the coalition of the old 
 Vedic faith of the Brahmans with Buddhism on the one hand, and with the ruder 
 rites of the pre-Aryan and Indo-Scythic races on the other. 
 
 " The ethnical basis of caste is disclosed in the twofold division of the people into 
 the ' twice-born ' Aryan castes, including the Brahmans, Kshattriyas (Rajputs), and 
 Vaisyas ; and the ' once-born ' non-Aryan Sudras. The Census proves that this clas- 
 sification remains the fundamental one to the present day. The three ' twice-born ' 
 castes still wear the sacred thread, and claim a joint, although an unequal, inheritance 
 in the holy books of the Veda. The ' once-born ' castes are still denied the sacred 
 thread, and their initiation into the old religious literature of the Indo-Aryans has 
 only been effected by the secular teaching of our Anglo-Indian schools. But while 
 caste has thus its foundations deep in the distinctions of race, its superstructure is 
 regulated by another system of division, based on the occupations of the people. The 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WOULD 243 
 
 part, based upon religious, military, literary, social, and industrial asso- 
 ciations.i u jg therefore in its original conception a scheme of social 
 and religious classification with a view to establishing and fixing once 
 for all a system of inflexible allotment, which involves at one and the 
 same time cohesion and separation, firmly uniting some members of the 
 community, and rigorously excluding others. It provides for a per- 
 petual system of social segregation, not only on the basis of heredity, 
 but as a method of classified absorption of every foreign element which 
 in future generations might become a part of the Indian social system 
 through conquest or assimilation. No one can doubt that it was an 
 inherent feature of the original conception to designate the supreme 
 place in the social system to the Brahman, and regulate all the rest of 
 society upon a sliding scale of relative inferiority to him, his rank being 
 virtually divine in its superiority and dignity.^ This supremacy of the 
 Brahman was not, however, actually secured without a severe struggle.* 
 It may be true, as Mr. Bhattacharya contends in his " Hindu Castes 
 and Sects " (an author to whom I would express my indebtedness for 
 much valuable information upon this, to the ordi- 
 nary lay intelligence, complex and inchoate sub- ns evolution into a 
 ject), that the originators of the caste system were social monstrosity, 
 not, consciously at least, conspirators against the 
 welfare and happiness of society, nor were they able to foresee the 
 amazing and ramifying influence for evil which it was destined to exert. 
 
 early classification of the people may be expressed either ethnically, as 'twice- 
 born ' Aryans and ' once-born ' non-Aryans ; or socially, as priests, warriors, hus- 
 bandmen, and serfs. On these two principles of classification, according to race and 
 to employment, still further modified by geographical position, has been built up the 
 ethnical and social organization of Indian caste."— Sir W. W. Hunter, " The Indian 
 Empire: Its Peoples, History, and Products,'' p. 241. 
 
 1 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 139-149. 
 
 ' " The most remarkable feature in the mechanism of Hindu society is the high 
 position occupied in it by the Brahmans. They not only claim almost divine honours 
 as their birthright, but, generally speaking, the other classes, including the great 
 Ksatriya princes and the rich Vaishya merchants, readily submit to their pretensions 
 as a matter of course. A Brahman never bows his head to make a pranam to one 
 who is not a Brahman. When saluted by a man of any other class, he only pronounces 
 a benediction, saying, ' Victory be unto you.' . . . The more orthodox Sudras carry 
 their veneration for the priestly class to such an extent that they will not cross the 
 shadow of a Brahman, and it is not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat 
 any food in the morning before drinking Bipracharanamrita, i.e., water in which the 
 toe of a Brahman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the Brahmans 
 is such that they do not bow to even the images of the gods worshipped in a Sudra's 
 houseby Brahman priests."— Bhattacharya, " Hindu Castes and Sects.l pp. I9i 20- 
 
 * Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 150. 
 
244 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In fact, this learned student, who has treated his theme with admirable 
 system and clearness, is inclined to credit its authors with " large-hearted 
 statesmanship " in designing such a facile instrumentality for keeping 
 every one in his place in the social scale. He is, indeed, free to ac- 
 knowledge that " the ambition that led the Hindu lawgivers to place 
 their own class above the rest of mankind has no doubt an appearance 
 of selfishness " (p. 5). He stoutly contends, however, that they were 
 surely moved by a most benevolent and liberal spirit. Be this as it 
 may, the truth remains that, both religiously and socially, the Brah- 
 man claims a monopoly of power and an eminence of position which 
 have solidified into the most extravagant canonization, and even deifi- 
 cation, of humanity as represented in his person, which history presents. 
 Not only the substance, but even the very shadow, of the Brahman is 
 sacred. As they were historically the authors of the developed system, 
 so they have remained the most prominent representatives of the caste 
 idea. They illustrate its tendency, and reveal in their characters and 
 claims the ultimate results of its workings, which are seen in all other 
 castes as well as in this supreme one. In its own place each caste is a 
 typical product of the system, and in many respects presents hardly 
 less marked evidence than that found in the Brahmans themselves of 
 its powerful impress upon the social character.^ The system presents 
 perhaps the most complete example of power over human will and 
 action that can be found in the history of mankind, not excepting re- 
 ligion or governmental despotism. 
 
 Religion, even though it has controlled the higher hfe and moulded 
 the character and aims of men in accordance with moral standards, 
 has never entered the details of human life and experience with such 
 minute and peremptory decrees, and shaped it in all its minutiae with 
 
 1 Mr. Bhattacharya, in his volume already referred to, gives a detailed but well- 
 systematized classification of Hindu castes and their formidable subdivisions and 
 ramifications. A general idea of his presentation of the subject may be gathered 
 from the following heads into which he divides his chapters: (i) " The Brahmans 
 Generally"; (2) "The Brahmans of Northern India"; (3) "The Brahmans of 
 Southern India"; (4) "The Semi-Brahmanical Castes"; (s) "The Degraded 
 Brahmans " ; (6) " The Military Castes * ; (7) " The Scientific Castes " ; (8) " The 
 Writer Castes " ; (9) " The Mercantile Castes " ; (10) " The Artisan Castes Gener- 
 ally Recognized as Clean Sudras"; (n) "The Manufacturing and Artisan Castes 
 that are Regarded as Unclean Sudras"; (12) " The Clean Agricultural Castes " ; 
 (13) " The Cowherds and Shepherds " ; (14) " The Clean and the Unclean Castes 
 Employed in Personal and Domestic Service"; (15) "Miscellaneous Castes." 
 Under these various heads there is a large number of subdivisions and classifica- 
 tions, which reveal the intricate and interpenetrating relations of the system to Hindu 
 society as a whole, from top to bottom. 
 
p 
 
 o 
 
 < 
 a . 
 
 «■ 
 
 ° a; 
 
 1 z, 
 o 
 
 en 
 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 245 
 
 such an overshadowing mastery, as has resulted from the inexorable and 
 bewildering requirements of caste regulations. The influence of caste 
 penetrates the innermost recesses of the spiritual life, 
 and reaches to the uttermost bounds of outward con- The overshadowing 
 duct and habit, concerning itself with the most trivial regulations. 
 
 as well as the most dignified aspects of daily experi- 
 ence. ^ Sir M. Monier-WiUiams remarks : " It is difficult for us Europeans 
 to understand how pride of caste as a divine ordinance interpenetrates 
 the whole being of the Hindu. He looks upon caste as his veritable 
 god, and thus caste rules, which we beheve to be a hindrance to the 
 acceptance of true religion, are to him the very essence of all reUgion. 
 They influence his whole life and conduct." As it exists at the present 
 day in India it is still as assertive in the lives of its devotees as it ever 
 has been in the past, and over all other classes still towers the Brahman, 
 who is regarded by the great mass of Hindus with a reverence which 
 hardly differs from worship. By Brahman in this connection we do 
 not refer to officiating priests, for, although the priestly caste is 
 Brahmanical, the great mass of Brahmans are not priests, and in 
 fact look down with considerable contempt upon the priestly class 
 known as Pujari Brahmans. It is not the priestly office, but his birth- 
 
 1 A classic passage upon thp regulative supremacy of caste in all its minute rami- 
 fications is found in the volume on " Indian Caste " from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Wl- 
 son. It is as follows: " It [caste] has for infancy, pupilage, and manhood its or- 
 dained methods of sucking, sipping, drinking, and eating; of washing, anointing; 
 of clothing and ornamenting the body ; of sitting, rising, reclining ; of moving, visit- 
 ing, travelling; of speaking, reading, listening, and reciting; and of meditating, 
 singing, working, and fighting. It has its laws for social and religious rights, 
 privileges, and occupations ; for education, duty, religious service ; for errors, sins, 
 transgressions ; for intercommunion, avoidance, and excommunication ; for defile- 
 ment and purification; for fines and other punishments. It unfolds the ways of 
 committing what it calls sins, accumulating sin, and of putting away sin ; of acquir- 
 ing, dispensing, and losing merit. It treats of inheritance, conveyance, possession, 
 and dispossession of property ; and of bargains, gains, loss, and ruin. It deals with 
 death, burial, and burning ; and with commemoration, assistance, and injury after 
 death. It interferes, in short, with all the relations and events of life, and with 
 what precedes and follows, or what is supposed to precede and follow, life. It reigns 
 supreme in the innumerable classes and divisions of the Hindus, whether they origi- 
 nate in family descent, in religious opinions, in civil or sacred occupations, or in local 
 residence ; and it professes to regulate all their interests, affairs, and relationships. 
 Caste is the guiding principle of each of the classes and divisions of the Hindus 
 viewed in their distinct and associated capacity. A caste is any of the classes or 
 divisions of Hindu society. The authority of caste rests partly on written laws, 
 partly on legendary fables and narratives, partly on the injunctions of instructors 
 and priests, partly on custom and usage, and partly on the caprice and convenienco 
 of its votaries."— Quoted in Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 125, 126. 
 
246 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 right, which makes the Brahman.^ The proportion of Brahmans to the 
 Hindu population may be roughly estimated as one twentieth, and they 
 are separated into numerous divisions and subdivisions. "As a matter 
 of fact," says Mr. Bhattacharya, " the divisions among the Brahmans 
 are so numerous that it is exceedingly difficult, if not actually impos- 
 sible, to frame an exhaustive and accurate list thereof " (p. 33). The 
 number of separate castes is enormous, and difficult to determine with 
 precision. The "Madras Census Report for 1881 " contained 19,044 
 caste names, and Sir William Hunter states that there are " not fewer 
 than 3000 of them which have separate names, and which regard them- 
 selves as separate classes." ^ One of the most terrible counts against 
 the system is that it behttles moral distinctions, while it exalts other 
 tests of character and conduct of no moral significance.^ 
 
 The social evil of the caste system is the aspect of the subject which 
 calls for notice here. As a matter of course, caste is admired and de- 
 fended by the great mass of Hindus, and, strange 
 What can be said in to Say, even some Enghsh officials in India have 
 its defense? defended it as facilitating the exercise of authority 
 
 by foreign government, and would therefore sus- 
 tain and foster it as a political convenience.* The substance of what 
 has been said in its advocacy may be summed up as follows : First, it 
 insures a certain degree of excellence in labor by virtue of its assign- 
 ment of the sphere of toil to successive generations. Second, it affords 
 some measure of protection by uniting classes with similar interests and 
 bound to help one another. Third, it promotes to some extent cleanli- 
 ness by its regulations concerning the care of utensils, bathing, etc. 
 
 1 Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 159, 160. 
 
 2 Hunter, " A Brief History of the Indian Peoples," p. 97. 
 
 3 " Caste carries out its own childish rules and laws with Draconian severity, 
 while it disregards the greatest crimes. A man may be guilty of dakoity and murder; 
 this does not affect his caste ; but let him take a glass of water from a European, and 
 caste is immediately destroyed. ' Other religions,' it has been remarked, ' may be 
 seated in the mind and soul; but the stronghold of Hinduism is the stomach.' The 
 most important distinctions between right and wrong are obliterated by caste."— 
 Dr. J. Murdoch, essay on " Moral Courage,'' pp. 45, 46, in Papers on Indian Social 
 Reform. 
 
 * Sir Lepel Griffin has written of this aspect of the question as follows : 
 If England continues to rule with justice, moderation, and impartiality, with 
 clean hands and an honest and eager desire to work for the good of the people, 
 there is no fear that the Hindus will ever turn against her. And the explanation of 
 this security is chiefly to be found in caste, which, by depriving the people of am- 
 bition, has left each man content with his position in life-"—" Caste," p. 21, Papers 
 on Indian Social Reform. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 247 
 
 Fourth, it promotes respect for authority. Fifth, it puts certain re- 
 straints upon immorality by confining it within caste lines.i 
 
 After all has been said, however, in its favor, an overwhelming in- 
 dictment can be brought against it as involving enormous disadvantages 
 and disabilities to Hindu society. We condense 
 again, from Papers on Indian Social Reform, The counts m a great 
 the following summary : First, it is productive of indictment, 
 
 physical degeneracy in that it involves the inter- 
 marriage of near relatives, and is mainly responsible for early marriages. 
 Second, it is one source of India's poverty, since it places restrictions 
 on foreign intercourse, and makes professions hereditary and labor de- 
 grading. Third, it hinders intellectual progress, since it frowns upon 
 general education. Fourth, it is antagonistic to social reform, and 
 fights fiercely for the continuance of every social evil which burdens 
 and crushes Indian society. Fifth, it destroys individual liberty, since 
 it places inexorable disabilities upon its victims. Sixth, it hinders the 
 growth of national sentiment, since it elevates caste above the idea of 
 nationality. It is, in fact, an expedient for ruling out national unity, 
 so that " ' a nation divided against itself ' is the proper description of 
 the Hindu race.'' This, it will be noted, is the very argument used by 
 Sir Lepel Griffin in advocacy of caste as facilitating foreign dominion. 
 Seventh, it creates discord among different classes of society, and has 
 been in the past the fruitful cause of dissensions and quarrels. Eighth, 
 it hardens the heart against human suffering, since the alleviation of 
 suffering can never be attempted in violation of caste regulations.^ 
 
 1 This statement of what can be said in favor of caste is taken from the paper on 
 " Caste," issued in Papers on Indian Social Reform, Madras, 1893. 
 
 2 " As regards the moral influence of caste upon the Hindu nation," says 
 Vaughan, " it is impossible to denounce the caste system too strongly. Its tendency 
 has been to eradicate human sympathies, to annihilate compassion, to make the heart 
 hard, harsh, and selfish. No one who has not lived in India can understand to what 
 an extent this hardening of the hearts of the Indian people has gone. No people in" 
 the world have a stronger sense of family ties than the Hindus. A friendly regard 
 for the wider circle of kinship may be remarked. This goes so far as a respectful 
 acknowledgment of all the members of one's own caste. But anything like an active 
 and general thought of beneficence even towards his caste brethren is not to be 
 thought of. Certainly, outside the caste, the weal or woe of his fellow-men makes 
 no impression on him. We have repeatedly observed along the great pilgrim routes 
 illustrations of this sad truth. We have seen poor creatures lying on the road seized 
 with illness. Hundreds of their co-religionists passed and took no more notice of 
 them than they would of a dying dog. We have heard the poor parched sufferers, 
 with folded hands and earnest voice, pray for a drop of water to moisten their lips, 
 but all in vain. Thus hundreds die uncared for, without sympathy, without help. 
 
248 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Ninth, it consigns to hopeless degradation nearly the entire human race, 
 and even assigns to a large section of mankind a rank lower than the 
 brutes. Tenth, it fills certain classes with unspeakable arrogance and 
 pride. The most consummate illustration of conceit in the world is the 
 Brahman. Eleventh, it identifies religion with outward ceremony, and 
 degrades moral standards to the level of external forms and customs. 
 The offenses against caste are confined to such things as eating, drink- 
 ing, and marrying contrary to rule, or neglecting some of the multiplied 
 regulations of caste behavior. Caste pollution becomes the merest 
 fiction, while moral uncleanness and gross crime are passed over with 
 little, if any, notice. Twelfth, the whole system is based upon false 
 conceptions of the Deity, and its most intense contentions have no basis 
 whatever in truth. Thirteenth, it is in defiance of human rights and 
 all strict justice between man and man. Its arbitrary divisions of sacred 
 and common, clean and unclean, holy and unholy, noble and ignoble, 
 have become crystallized into a regnant system which is despotic to 
 the last degree. 
 
 A striking commentary upon the whole system is the lamentable, 
 almost hopeless, social degradation of the Pariahs, a low caste section 
 
 of Indian population. An admirable r6simi6 of 
 
 The ostracism of the their State is given by the Rev. L. L. Uhl, Ph.D., 
 
 Pariahs. of the American Lutheran Mission, Guntur, in a 
 
 paper presented at the Bombay Conference of 
 1892-93, and published on page 550 of its report. The picture he 
 draws is one of crushing social ostracism, of terrible restrictions in every- 
 thing that concerns their hygienic, physical, intellectual, and moral 
 welfare. The strenuousness of this social excommunication seems to 
 vary somewhat in different sections of India. It prevails in the Native 
 States more than in British India, and among them none is more caste- 
 ridden than Travancore,! in the southwesterly extremity of the penin- 
 
 Probably before death has done its work the vultures and the jackals begin theirs, 
 and so the roads which lead to the holy places are lined with rows of white bones 
 and bleached skulls. Whence this more than brutal hardening? What has dried 
 up all the fountains of human sympathy? It is caste." — Quoted in Warneck, " Mod- 
 ern Missions and Culture,'' p. 368. 
 
 1 " In Travancore they [Pariahs] are not allowed to pass along the public streets, 
 and even in the city of Madras there is a street at the entrance to which there is a 
 notice forbidding Pariahs to pass that way. They are not permitted to draw water 
 from the village wells, and in many cases suffer severely from this prohibition. I 
 have known places where they have been obliged to content themselves with mud 
 degenerated from a foul hole, though there was an abundant supply of good water 
 within easy reach. Except in a few very exceptional cases, they are not permitted 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 249 
 
 sula. Brahmanism reigns there with its most extravagant pretensions. 
 Mrs. Murray Mitchell, in a volume entitled " In Southern India," refers 
 to Brahmanism as found in that section as follows : " Caste is intensely 
 and exceptionally strong, and, as elsewhere, stands in the way of all 
 progress. The degradation of the low castes, consequent on the absurd 
 and oppressive laws of caste, is terrible here, and hardly to be believed. 
 For example, no native Christian, however educated and intelligent, nor 
 any person of low caste, can obtain employment in a public office, for 
 fear of polluting those officials who may be of higher caste. Then the 
 school difficulties are endless. The children of some of the inferior 
 castes dare not even approach a school where higher-caste lads are 
 taught. The disabilities are inconceivable and so are the injustice and 
 inequality of the laws. Women, too, are degraded to a degree one 
 hardly finds equalled in these days of reform in any other part of India. 
 It is terrible to look at some of the poor, miserable-looking creatures, 
 with hardly any clothing and no sense even of decency." ^ 
 
 A consensus of influential opinion as to the evils of caste by both 
 foreign and native students of Indian history and society might be 
 given at considerable length. Some of the most 
 distinguished and inteUigent natives of India have gome representative 
 had the courage— and it has required great moral opinions on caste, 
 heroism — to renounce caste, and in some instances 
 eminent Indians have done valiant service in seeking to deliver their 
 countrymen from its stupendous bondage. Among them may be men- 
 tioned the late Rev. Dr. Krishna Mohun Banerjea, Pandit Bishan 
 Narayan Dar, Raja Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, Sasipada 
 Banerjee, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Raja Sir Tanjore Madhava Row, 
 Protab Chunder Mozumdar, Pandit Shiva Nath Sastri, and Mr. Beh- 
 ramji M. Malabari, the accompHshed editor of The Indian Spectator, 
 
 to live in the main village, but occupy huts outside the village boundary. Although 
 English law seeks to treat all classes alike, owing to the prejudices of the subordinate 
 officials, who are Hindus, Pariahs are, as a rule, prevented from entering hospitals, 
 courts, post-offices, and similar public buildings. Every attempt on the part of people 
 belonging to these stations in life to improve their position calls forth the bitterest 
 opposition of the higher classes."— Rev. W. Howard Campbell (L. M. S.), Cud- 
 dapah, Madras, India. 
 
 1 Quoted in Bailey, " A Glimpse at the Indian Mission Field and Leper Asy- 
 lums," pp. 33, 34. 
 
 Cf. also " The Condition of the Pariah Outcastes in India," by the Rev. James 
 Johnston, in The Missionary Review of the World, April, 1895, p. 276; The Baptist 
 Missionary Review (India), February, 1895, p. 56; March, 1895, p. 97; and " The 
 Wrongs of the Pariah," by the Rev. George Patterson, in Work and Workers in the 
 Mission Field, June, 1892, p. 70. 
 
250 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 who, although born a Parsi, had a Hindu mother and knew the sys- 
 tern through and through. In the sketch of his life and times by Mr. 
 R. P. Karkaria an instance is given (p. ii6) of what it means for a 
 Hindu to break caste.i Other names might be given, and several of 
 the native papers of India might be designated which have done ex- 
 cellent service in this direction, although edited by Hindus. 
 
 As viewed from a missionary standpoint, the present workings of 
 caste in Hindu society must be regarded as a social evil of immensely 
 
 depressing and paralyzing power.* Missionaries 
 
 An indefensible and for- ^re not alone in this Opinion, as learned students, 
 
 "ociai^rogress. such as Sir M. Monier-WiUiams and Professor 
 
 Max MuUer, have expressed most emphatic judg- 
 ments as to the indefensible pretensions and terrible social evils of caste. 
 Anglo-Indian officials of distinction have also united in this verdict. In 
 the " Madras Census Report for 1871 " Dr. Cornish, in an " Introduc- 
 tion on Caste," expresses it as his conclusion that it " is now the greatest 
 bar to the advance of the Indian people in civilization and aptitude 
 for self-government." '^ In agreement with this is the judgment of Sir 
 
 1 " The complex machinery of caste, which unites Hindus and holds them as in 
 a dead man's embrace, is set against them. The horrors of excommunication hang 
 constantly over their heads. The social reformer's task is thus of a most trying 
 nature. Many a stout heart has been broken under the strain of persecution. A 
 man may not care for himself ; he may in his own person defy any persecution, how- 
 ever bitter ; but when his whole family is condemned along with him, and severed 
 from all intercourse with the society around them, — when for his zeal his near and 
 dear ones are made to suffer with him, — nothing short of heroism can bear him up. 
 It is unreasonable to expect such heroism from many. Karsandas Mulji, a Hindu 
 of Gujarat, showed such courage in the last generation, and for a long time defied 
 caste and superstition. But he too had to yield at last. His last days were embittered 
 by the helpless state to which his family had been reduced. He died in grief and 
 solitude. Caste had proved too strong for his individual efforts. His family could 
 not defy it. They retracted, and underwent a humiliating penance in order to be 
 taken back into the fold of their caste. Superstition and bigotry thus triumphed." 
 —Karkaria, "India: Forty Years of Progress and Reform," p. 116. 
 
 2 " Undoubtedly caste is the first and greatest social evil in this section of India." 
 —Rev. D. Downie, D.D. (A. B. M. U.), Nellore, India. 
 
 " The system amounts to a stupid, selfish, proud, stagnant, degrading tyranny, 
 difficult for us to conceive." — Rev. Robert Morrison (P. B. F. M. N.), Lahore, 
 India. 
 
 " Caste is one of the greatest evils that are to be found in Hindu society. It 
 separates man from man, fosters pride on the one hand and envy on the other, and 
 effectually destroys individuality by bringing all classes under the yoke of a mul- 
 titude of minute and vexatious formulDe."— Rev. W. Howard Campbell (L. M. S.), 
 Cuddapah, Madras, India. 
 
 8 " Madras Census Report, 1871," p. 130. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 251 
 
 Henry Maine that caste is "the most disastrous and blighting of all 
 human institutions." There is evidently a hard iight, in fact a social 
 convulsion, which must come in connection with the break-up of this 
 tremendous system. Its solidarity is something which no mere words 
 can describe.! It will be one of the most signal triumphs of Christianity 
 over human ignorance, superstition, pride, and stout-hearted defiance 
 when it shall finally make a successful breach in these massive ramparts. 
 The disciples of caste are no doubt aware that their system can never 
 assimilate modern civilization, and can never coalesce with the spirit 
 of the Gospel. It is now the pohcy of Christian missions not to recog- 
 nize caste in the Church. 
 
 In some sections of India, especially in the Native States, the posi- 
 tion of native Christians is one of difficulty, and characterized by many 
 unjust disabilities. They are even regarded as 
 outcastes, and have been visited with some of the The effort to fix caste 
 
 . _ disabilities upon native 
 
 ignommy and ostracism which are common in the christians, 
 
 case of non-caste people. Their property rights 
 have been declared as forfeited in the Province of Mysore.* There is 
 serious interference with the custody of children, prohibition of the use 
 of public wells, and other minor annoyances. The Bangalore Native 
 Christian Association has presented an address to the Lord Bishop of 
 Madras, recounting the objectionable features of this situation, and in 
 view of the fact that there are 30,000 Christians in the Province of 
 Mysore, its members requested his aid to secure the removal of these 
 
 1 " We conceive that so peculiarly tenacious is the caste cement which binds the 
 courses of its social masonry that the dislodgment of individual stones does nothing 
 to impair the structural integrity of the edifice. The wall of its circumvallation is 
 massive and smooth, and the separation of a fragment from its face is impercep- 
 tible in the solidity of the whole. The breach seems to close again of itself, and 
 the defenses, instead of crumbling, seem only the more indurated by their slight 
 and temporary disturbance."— /"y^^ Church Missimary Intelligencer, July, 1893, 
 
 p. 500- 
 
 2 " A convert to Christianity in Mysore has no rights at all. Act XXI. of 1850, 
 which confers rights of property on converts in British India, is not in force in 
 Mysore, and consequently a convert cannot claim any share of the family property. 
 If he had by his own earnings brought a large amount of property to the family, he 
 would not be able to claim it in case he changed his creed. The Courts of Mysore 
 would declare that he was patita (fallen from caste), and therefore entitled to no 
 consideration whatever. The embracing of Christianity would make a rich man poor, 
 and deprive the poor of the little he possessed; and the Mysore Courts would, not 
 interfere to redress the wrong." See paper on " The Position and Disabilities of 
 Native Christians in the Province of Mysore," by the Rev. H. Gulliford, presented 
 to the Bangalore Native Christian Association, October 9, 1895, and subsequently 
 published as a supplement to The Christian Patriot of Madras. 
 
252 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 disabilities. A similar movement is in operation for the Native State 
 of Travancore, where the situation is still more trying.^ 
 
 The overshadowing import of caste as found in India seems to 
 render it a comparatively insignificant matter in other lands. It is, 
 indeed, not found in China ^ or Japan, although 
 Milder forms of caste the old feudal distinctions were nearly as pro- 
 spirit in other lands, nounced as caste classification in India. A power- 
 ful class spirit, however, is still found in Japanese 
 society, but perhaps not more so than elsewhere.^ It is not found at 
 all in Siam,* although it prevails in all its intensity just north in Assam. 
 We have mild phases of it in Korea, chiefly in connection with trade 
 distinctions, for example, the butchers as a class were obUged to observe 
 certain restrictions, which, however, have recently been abolished, largely 
 through Christian influence, by official action of the Korean Govern- 
 ment. In some of the South Sea Islands there is a strong caste feeling.^ 
 and in certain sections of Africa it is quite pronounced, as in Dahomey 
 and Bechuanaland.* 
 
 1 See editorial on " The Disabilities of Native Christians in the Travancore 
 State," in The Christian Patriot, Madras, November 21, 1895. 
 
 2 " Caste, in the Indian sense of the word, is not found here." — Rev. Jonathan 
 Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, North China. 
 
 * " Class spirit once existed in Japan, and with great power. It certainly still 
 exists in a modified form. It cannot be said that the Japanese, even in the Christian 
 Church, are wholly above the influence of the once powerful class spirit. But the 
 manifestations of this spirit here are so seldom and so meagre compared with former 
 times that the Japanese would themselves be almost ready to say that it does not 
 exist. Christian civilization is a leveller, and this phase of the influence of Chris- 
 tianity upon Japan is specially prevalent. The once despised merchant and mechanic 
 classes are rising in power, and are becoming more and more respected by the liter- 
 ary and social classes. The class distinctions that begin to prevail are those which 
 come naturally to society in any land."— Rev. David S. Spencer (M. E. M. S.), 
 Nagoya, Japan. 
 
 < " There is no caste, and the separation between the two extremes of society is not 
 so marked as in Christian lands to-day."— Rev. Daniel McGilvary (P. B. F. M. N.), 
 Chieng Mai, Laos. 
 
 5 " In the northern part of the New Hebrides Group the system of caste has as 
 firm a hold upon the natives as it has in India. They belong to different castes ac- 
 cording to rank. The women and children are outside the pale of caste."— Rev. 
 William Gunn (F. C. S.), Futuna, New Hebrides. 
 
 • Illustrated Africa, June, 1895, p. 9 ; Work and Workers in the Mission Field, 
 February, 1893, p. 63. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 253 
 v.— THE NATIONAL GROUP 
 
 (Evils which afflict society through the misuse of the governing power) 
 
 Government is a fundamental and universal necessity to the pros- 
 perity and efficiency of the social organism. In its rudimentary as 
 well as its more perfected forms it has been an 
 inevitable feature of associate life through all his- "^"^^ dignity of the 
 
 XT c c i ^ ■ 7 1 state, and the perils 
 
 tory. No one form of government, patriarchal, of power, 
 
 tribal, monarchical, oligarchical, or even constitu- 
 tional, can claim exclusive excellence or pose as the only possible sys- 
 tem which can secvure the common welfare. Good or bad rule does not 
 depend so much on the form as on the spirit and method with which gov- 
 ernment is conducted. Any system may be abused or become the in- 
 strument of tyranny, although it is no doubt true that an immensely 
 preponderating danger in this respect attends all forms of personal as 
 distinguished from constitutional authority, since the balancing restraint 
 of recognized responsibility is far more imperfectly realized in the ex- 
 ercise of personal than of constitutional power. The great and legiti- 
 mate function of government is to secure and conserve the rights of 
 subjects, while ministering to the good order, prosperity, Uberty, and 
 higher welfare of society. It has upon occasion the fiu-ther duty of 
 protecting its authority and its geographical domain from aggression, 
 that it may preserve its title to independent existence. The State has 
 a right to be as an essential condition of social order and safety. It is 
 in reality the necessary outgrowth of the family, and as the family is 
 divine in its origin, so the State is both established and sanctioned by 
 God as the enlargement of family life.i It is the evolution of primitive 
 patriarchal and family relationships. In this sense " the powers that 
 be are ordained of God " for the benefit of the larger life of man. The 
 history of the world, however, shows what fearful misuse has been 
 made of the governing power. The record of what the world has suf- 
 fered from bad government is indeed a dark and melancholy chapter in 
 human annals.2 The good of the people has been often heedlessly 
 
 » " The original State was a family. Historically the State of to-day may be 
 regarded as in an important sense only an enlarged family: State is family writ 
 large."— Woodrow Wilson, " The State," p. 3. 
 
 8 On misgovernment under the Roman emperors, especially Diocletian, see ex- 
 tract from Lactantius, in " Selections from Early Writers," by Henry Melville 
 Gwatkin, p. 151. 
 
254 CffRISTIAN MISS/OJVS AMD SOCIAL PkOGRESS 
 
 forgotten or purposely ignored, while the arbitrary will or personal 
 ambition of the sovereign has become the guiding impulse of govern- 
 ment. The fact that the common welfare puts under certain restraints 
 not only the personal desires and projects of the individual subject, but 
 also the will of the ruler, has been a principle all too frequently ignored 
 by those possessing despotic power. In most instances the rulers of 
 heathen history of all ranks and grades have looked upon government 
 as simply a process of self-aggrandizement and exaltation at the ex- 
 pense of those who were subject to their authority. The most promi- 
 nent conception of sovereignty in action which has occupied the minds 
 and controlled the policy of rulers in the past history of the world, and 
 which still prevails in non-Christian lands, is that it is the most avail- 
 able method for wresting from others the rights and liberties to which 
 they are entitled by every law of justice and honesty. The temptations 
 of power are almost resistless, and in illustration of this we need not 
 travel far from even a civilized environment. If we are to believe 
 much of what is reported in the colonial history of civilized govern- 
 ments, not to speak of the contemporary annals of Spanish rule or of 
 European administration in the Congo Free State under Belgian rule 
 or of German administration in certain sections of Africa, we have 
 still available, even at the present moment, striking examples of how 
 easily men of European lineage can yield themselves to the gross and 
 cruel misuse of official authority. 
 
 The history of heathenism is, as a rule, marked by despotism. The 
 old Oriental empires and their modern successors are alike in this re- 
 spect. Savage life has been almost invariably characterized by tyranny 
 on the part of rulers. The non-Christian world at the present day is 
 still to a great extent in the toils of irresponsible power. In some 
 sections there has been great and promising improvement within even 
 a half-century, as, for example, in India, Japan, and the European 
 colonies and protectorates estabHshed in various parts of the world. In 
 this connection, however, as we have intimated, some large reservations 
 are no doubt necessary, but they are happily the exception rather than 
 the rule. Under this general group we shall present a few specifications. 
 
 I. Civil Tyranny.— The different phases of misgovemment are 
 often so allied in principle and practice that it is difficult to deal with 
 the subject under specific headings without the appearance of overlap- 
 ping and repeating. This is, in fact, just what happens in the execu- 
 tive policy of despotic rulers, who usually improve every opportunity 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 255 
 
 for misusing their power, with no scruples as to method. Some ap- 
 parent confusion is therefore hkely to be incidental to any attempt to 
 expose the complex and intermingled phases of their misrule. By civil 
 t)nranny we refer more especially to the arbitrary use of power in 
 trampling upon civil rights and reducing a citizen and subject to the 
 position of a tool and a slave. It is illustrated in making the will of 
 the ruler to be law, and the personal and civil rights of the subject to 
 be non-existent whenever it suits the purpose of the governing power 
 to ignore or violate them. This principle of despotism may be found 
 not only in the ways of kings and superior officials, but in the methods 
 of underlings and petty officers, in some instances with exceptional 
 severity. 
 
 The position of the helpless subjects, or rather victims, of some of 
 the Oriental governments at the present hour would be pronounced 
 absolutely intolerable if there were any remedy 
 available. The attention of the world just now civii tyranny in 
 is fixed upon the status in the Turkish Empire Turkey, 
 
 under the rule of pashadom. This has been for 
 ages little else than organized brigandage in the name of government. 
 PoUtical rule there is simply martial law under the guise of government 
 in the hands of a ruling caste, whose object is not to protect and defend 
 civil rights, but rather to use positions of authority for purposes of self- 
 aggrandizement, at the expense, when necessary, of every principle of 
 liberty, justice, and law.i Now and then the slow, inconspicuous, 
 grinding movement of the machinery of misrule loses its self-restraint, 
 and begins to throb with passion and whirl with the propulsion of some 
 unusual excitement, which results either in a massacre or in some ex- 
 traordinary expedient of wholesale and peremptory blackmail. Just at 
 present there is an acute and virulent outbreak of the passions of mis- 
 rule, but the spirit which has now come to blows and deeds of blood 
 and cruelty has all along been revealing its tendencies, until maladmin- 
 istration may be said to be the chronic curse of Turkey. A few words 
 from a resident missionary of the empire, written before the recent 
 massacres, reveal the existence of potential extermination as a poUtical 
 programme before the policy was actually put into execution.^ Pub- 
 
 1 In the index to Dwight's " Turkish Life in War Times," under the heading 
 " Administrative Anomalies," is given a suggestive list of the eccentricities of Otto- 
 man maladministration. 
 
 2 " It would be out of place at the present time and in my position to enter upon 
 a tirade against the powers that be, civil and religious, but I may remark m passing 
 that there is much under the well-gilded surface which, if thoroughly exposed. 
 
266 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 lie opinion and the influence of the native press are entirely inoperative, 
 being wholly subservient to the fierce power of despotic authority. A 
 volume might be written upon this one subject of Turkish misrule. 
 Would that some Dante of contemporary literature might present it in 
 its realistic hideousness! although we fear no touch of art could suffi- 
 ciently relieve the revolting ghasdiness of this hell upon earth to save 
 the reader from a shuddering misery in its perusal. Persia is perhaps 
 less desperately bad than Turkey ; yet the government of the shahs is 
 despotic, and in the case of non-Moslems is often guilty of gross in- 
 justice.i All Central Asia knows only the methods of tyranny. 
 
 In China the entire government is conducted on the principle that 
 authority and power include the opportunity of mulcting the people ; 
 
 and not only the people, but even inferior officials, 
 
 Methods of extortion in accordance with the theory of responsibility 
 
 in China. which prevails there, are often the scapegoats and 
 
 victims of higher officials whenever occasion ad- 
 mits. Extortion is the rule. Every one in power searches for his 
 victims, and the higher the official the larger must be his ill-gotten 
 gains.2 It is customary not only to arraign the guilty party, but to 
 count his relatives, his neighbors, and even his village, responsible for his 
 misdoings.^ This simply enlarges the area for prosecuting, and prac- 
 tically destroys the principle of personal responsibility.* Not only is 
 extortion one of the manifest results of this system, but it affords an 
 almost unlimited opportunity for the indefinite imprisonment of both 
 the innocent and the guilty without any attempt to discriminate be- 
 tween them.5 It sometimes happens that prisoners are kept for years 
 
 would surprise and shock the common sense and decency of the world. The wildest 
 dreams of a Malthus or a Machiavelli are commonplace in comparison with the schemes 
 which have been calmly contemplated and discussed by different classes of the inhabi- 
 tants of this land, for the purpose of reducing the numbers of those who do not fall 
 in with the requirements of their own systems. How far these schemes have been, 
 or are likely to be, carried into effect, is a question which may properly be referred 
 to history for a reply. ''—Rev.' Edward Riggs (A. B. C. F. M.), Marsovan, Turkey. 
 
 Cf. also English Blue Book, Turkey, No. 3, 1896, entitled " Correspondence 
 Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, 1892-93 " ; " The Armenian Crisis in 
 Turkey," by Frederick Davis Greene, chap, iii., on " The Chronic Condition of Ar- 
 menia and Kurdistan "; " Report of the London Conference, 1888," vol. i., pp. 23- 
 27, Address of the Rev. G. E. Post, M.D. ; " Transcaucasia and Ararat," by James 
 Bryce, fourth ed., with supplementary chapter on Armenia. 
 
 i Browne, *' A Year amongst the Persians," pp. 107, 108. 
 
 2 Williams, "The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 474-482. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 480. 4 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 235. 
 
 » Douglas, "Society in China," pp. 88-91. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 257 
 
 in painful confinement without any effort at trial. " The most com- 
 mon complaint of the Chinese," writes Dr. Graves in " Forty Years in 
 China," " except, perhaps, the ever-present cry of hard times so com- 
 mon in every land, is the injustice of the Courts. They have no con- 
 fidence either in the integrity of their mandarins or the possibility of 
 obtaining justice at their hands " (p. 104). Is it strange that revolution 
 is a frequent incident in China? The Government becomes so intoler- 
 able that a change must be secured at any cost. 
 
 As regards Korea, its Government has been pronounced by a native 
 Korean to be " a combination of a despotic monarchy and a corrupted 
 oligarchy, with the worst elements of both. The 
 sole design and purpose of the whole machinery is civii administration in 
 to promote the interest of the fewest possible at Korea and japan, 
 the cost of the nation. Most stringent measures 
 have been adopted to impoverish the mind, enslave the spirit, repress 
 the ambition, and discourage the progress of the people, for no other 
 reason than to enable a few to enjoy power and wealth." 1 The testi- 
 mony of a resident missionary confirms this verdict.2 In Japan the 
 old order, which was characterized by grievous defects,' has been 
 superseded by immense changes in the direction of civilization and 
 reform, yet no nation, however receptive and aspiring, can hope to 
 reverse at once the traditions and customs of ages. While the civiliza- 
 
 1 The Messenger (Shanghai), November, 1894, p. 162. 
 
 2 " Korea has known nothing but civil oppression for years. There has not 
 been even a show of justice. A custom which has grown in the last quarter-cen- 
 tury will illustrate this. Suppose a dissolute or rascally member of a family having 
 wealthy connections contracts debts, his whole family (even distant connections) 
 are held responsible for the payment of the same. An official desiring to extort 
 money will (possibly by conspiracy with the rascal) loan money to one who there- 
 upon absconds or loses the money in fraudulent investments. Then the process of 
 securing this money from the man's relatives is begun, and these are all compelled 
 to pay to the official whatever he may demand. Failure to do so subjects them to 
 imprisonment, torture, or death. I knew a case where a distant kinsman by mar- 
 riage, who had never seen his fraudulent relative, and had never had any business 
 relations with him, was thus compelled to help to pay his debts. The officials and 
 all their underlings (of whom there are ten or one hundred times as many as there is 
 need for) live by plunder. In this city last winter a lad in the country was reported 
 to have found a treasure in a field. On the basis of this rumor he was arrested by 
 the underlings of an official here, and tortured in the hope of making him surrender the 
 reported treasure. He was beaten so cruelly that death resulted. The officials and 
 underlings are simply a band of conspirators ruling in order to rob the people. To 
 fall into the clutches of the law on a true or false charge means release only upon 
 payment of money."— Rev. S. A. Moffett (P. B. F. M. N.), Pyeng Yang, Korea. 
 
 3 Griffis, "The Religions of Japan," pp. 359-363- 
 
258 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tion of Japan as a whole may be said to be still under the sway of its old 
 pagan ideals, yet the presence of the spirit of reform and its extraor- 
 dinary activity give promise of the speedy and permanent enthrone- 
 ment of the essential principles of civil and religious liberty in that 
 empire.i Japan is truly indebted to a few ardent and patriotic spirits 
 who have " followed the gleam " of a higher civiUzation, and steadily 
 wrought for its introduction into their native land. The infusion of 
 Christianity will be of unspeakable value just at this stage of Japanese 
 transformation. 
 
 In India the British Government has laid the foundation of civil 
 reforms, which seem to guarantee a promising future to that vast coun- 
 try. The difficulties of executive administration 
 British reforms in are Still formidable, yet principles have been in- 
 india. corporated in the policy of the Government which 
 
 have never been dreamed of before in India. Pre- 
 vious to the advent of British rule the government of the Indian races 
 by native rulers was simply organized despotism of the most cruel 
 order.2 The Native States, although under restraint, are still governed 
 by a system which gives large scope for civil tyranny.^ Of the civil 
 
 1 " Anciently, civil oppression existed in Japan, but it would not be correct to 
 declare that it now exists. The doctrine of individual rights has so far advanced as 
 to cause surprise even to the missionary and to the advocate of progress in the 
 Government. The coming Civil Code promises to be so drawn from European 
 standards as to thoroughly protect the individual at every point. Indeed, he is nearly 
 as well protected now under the law as he is in the United States." — Rev. David 
 S. Spencer (M. E. M. S.), Nagoya, Japan. 
 
 2 Raghavaiyangar, " Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty 
 Years," Memorandum on the State of the Country and the Condition of the People 
 in Former Centuries, pp. 2-19. 
 
 An incident is narrated by Mr. Raghavaiyangar which illustrates the arbitrary 
 character of former rulers. He reports that Tippoo Sultan, a ruler of Southern India 
 at the end of the eighteenth century, " used to change the value of the coins in a very 
 arbitrary manner. When he was about to pay his troops, the nominal value of every 
 coin was raised very high, and kept at that level for a few days, and during this pe- 
 riod the soldiery were allowed to pay off their debts at the high valuation " {ibid., 
 p. 22). 
 
 ' " The poor, and indeed all classes, are subjected to a very considerable amount 
 of civil oppression. The English officials do what they can to administer even-handed 
 justice to all classes, but the subordinate officials, who are natives of the country, 
 and many of them Brahmans, are too often very corrupt and oppressive. Bribery is 
 the rule, not the exception. The police force is almost hopelessly corrupt, and its 
 members are in many cases guilty of cruel extortion. It is by no means uncommon 
 for them to take bribes from a wealthy offender, and then by means of false evidence 
 secure the conviction of some poor man wholly unconnected with the matter. The 
 village officials are, as a rule, in league with the police, and aid them in their extor- 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 259 
 
 conditions in Assam and Siam it is not necessary to speak in detail.i 
 In Africa civil rights were practically unknown amid its savage pop- 
 ulation until European governments instituted colonial administra- 
 tion.2 A representative statement of the African theory of personal 
 rights is given in the words of a resident missionary of Bechuanaland.* 
 
 2. Oppressive Taxation.— The levying of taxes is a legitimate 
 function of government, since the existence of the State and the well- 
 being of its citizens are secured by a just and systematic impost. It is 
 only when this department is administered in an arbitrary, unjust^ and 
 extortionate manner that objection can be taken to its methods. Taxa- 
 tion has always been a tempting field for the exploits of despotic power. 
 It is just here that irresponsible government finds its opportunity, and, 
 through ostensibly legal processes, seeks to aggrandize itself by rob- 
 
 tion. The subordinate officials connected with the forest and excise departments are 
 little better than the police. Where local government has been introduced, the dis- 
 trict and county boards have, where not controlled by a European officer, proved 
 themselves incapable of rising above caste prejudice. In the Cuddapah district one 
 county board issued an order forbidding the use of public rest-houses by any but 
 high-caste Hindus, while another forbade the teacher of a government school to re- 
 ceive Pariah children into his school." — Rev. W. Howard Campbell (L. M. S.), 
 Cuddapah, Madras, India. 
 
 1 " Heathen rulers are both greater and smaller than civilized ones. They are 
 extremely despotic, but with no order or method. Justice is whatever suits them at 
 the time. Should they occasionally try to follow any rule, they will follow it blindly 
 without taking into consideration either different circumstances or different charac- 
 ters, so that really the one is as bad as the other— rule almost as bad as no rule. 
 Heathen rulers as a class, with, of course, some few good exceptions, rule for their 
 own advantage, and not for the good of the subjects. Taxes, fines, etc., go to the 
 ruler's pocket, and not to the public treasury, because there is no public treasury. 
 Every case of judging between parties is a pecuniary advantage to the ruler. And 
 the result of this with unscrupulous people is that the ruler puts one person against 
 another, that he may increase the number of cases to be judged, and thereby add to 
 his income. This is a very common thing. To begin with, he takes bribes from 
 both parties, and then justifies the one who has given him most, and fines the other 
 in addition to what he has had to pay before. Sometimes he puts it into the head of 
 the one who has lost the case to bring it up again before him under a slightly differ- 
 ent aspect. If this is done, he may offer to settle the difference between them, and 
 so get a little more money from one of the parties, or from both. Such a thing as 
 this is of daily occurrence in this country. It is not a very rare thing for a king to 
 give land belonging to one person to another, a favorite. In his kingdom he can 
 get any number of people to do whatever he tells them."— Rev. Robert Evans 
 (W. C. M. M. S.), ShiUong, Assam. 
 
 2 Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," pp. lo, ii, igo, 191. ^ 
 
 » " Their chiefs are the supreme power in the tribe, and in olden times it was 
 
260 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PKOGJiESS 
 
 bing its subjects. Under these circumstances taxation becomes simply 
 a species of official brigandage. That a large part of the non-Chris- 
 tian world groans under the miseries and wrongs of tyrannical taxation 
 is a fact hardly to be disputed. 
 
 In India, before the advent of the British Government, taxes were 
 imposed at the will of rapacious despots, and often collected by mili- 
 tary force. The assessment was excessive, and the 
 Taxation, past and items on the tax-list were remarkable for variety, 
 present, in India. ingenuity, and absurdity.! The state of taxation 
 in Kashmir has been declared by Mr. Lawrence, 
 Settlement Commissioner of Kashmir and Jammu State, to be a history 
 of extortion and oppression extending over centuries, amounting at its 
 maximum to not less than three fourths of the produce of the land, the 
 effect of which was simply to pauperize almost the entire population.^ 
 It is needless to say that the British Government has worked an 
 economic and social revolution in that region. There is, however, no 
 little discontent in India at the present time with British taxation. The 
 note of complaint is loudly sounded in the discussions of the native 
 press and, in more dignified form, in the annual reports of the Indian 
 National Congress. To what extent there is justice in these strictures 
 we cannot judge. Perhaps under foreign rule dissatisfaction is more or 
 less inevitable, especially if any extravagance characterizes the military 
 and civil administration of the foreign occupancy. In comparison with 
 the state of taxation under native rulers, there can be no doubt that 
 system, fixedness, moderation, and reasonable fairness have taken the 
 place of individual greed and arbitrary exaction, and that the country 
 itself, directly or indirectly, reaps the benefits of the revenues it yields. 
 In Assam, where the old native system largely prevails, almost every 
 punishment takes in the first instance the form of fines, which be- 
 come the perquisites of the authorities, In Siam the feUcitous ex- 
 death to disobey them. Although their power has in some aspects been curtailed by 
 the presence of the English magistrate, their will is still paramount so far as the in- 
 ternal administration of the tribe is concerned. The government is a despotic mon- 
 archy. It is true every chief has his parliament, which consists of his sons, nephews, 
 uncles, and cousins, but, generally speaking, these exist only to endorse his 
 speeches and acts, and to supplement all his words with, ' Thou hast spoken well, 
 O chief!' Said a man to me the other day, ' We must obey the chief even though 
 we know he is wrong. ' This describes the whole attitude of the Bechuana toward 
 their chiefs."— Rev. Alfred S. Sharp (W. M. S.), Mafeking, Bechuanaland. 
 
 1 " The Native States of India," p. 3 ; Raghavaiyangar, " Progress of the Ma- 
 dras Presidency During the Last Forty Years," pp. 9, 31. 
 
 2 Lawrence, " The Valley of Kashmir." 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 261 
 
 pression for ruling is "eating," since the rulers metaphorically "eat 
 the people." i 
 
 In China the system of " squeezing " is reduced to a science, and is 
 one of the fine arts of government. The imposition of taxes becomes 
 the ready expedient to which Chinese officials re- 
 sort in reimbursing themselves for the expenses xhe science of 
 incidental to securing their political position. The " squeezing •• in china, 
 dishonesty and extortion which characterize Chi- 
 nese taxation rest as a crushing burden upon an industrious people,^ 
 and afford to unscrupulous officials a constant opportunity for abusing 
 their authority for the sake of personal emolument.^ Official rapacity 
 in some instances overleaps itself, and the desperate people are driven 
 to violence and revenge, which they often administer in the form of 
 punishment upon the officials themselves.* In times of pohtical emer- 
 gency, as, for example, during the late war, taxes of forty per cent, on 
 the value of houses were suddenly exacted from the people, as was the 
 case in Hankow.* The lack of patriotism in China, and the distrust 
 of those in authority, are traceable to this arbitrary use of power on 
 the part of the officials. The lesser officials are as rapacious as those 
 in higher positions, and there are even self-appointed extortioners, who 
 cloak their fraudulent acts by the borrowed semblance of authority. 
 The law in China becomes in many instances a facile instrument of 
 blackmail in the hands of impudent impostors.^ 
 
 1 " There is no stipulated amount of taxes, hence a subject is liable at any time to 
 be called upon to meet some new form of taxation as well as an increase in the amount 
 of some old one. And if any of the common people become possessed of more than 
 the ordinary share of property, especially of some form that is usually owned by the 
 nobility, as, for example, elephants, such constant requisitions are made upon this 
 that he usually finds it better to dispose of it. One of our most prosperous Chris- 
 tians in the district of Chieng Hai was thus so pestered by the constant requisitions 
 made upon his elephants that in desperation he sold them."— Rev. W. C. Dodd 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Lampoon, Laos. 
 
 2 Douglas, " Society in China,'' p. I2i. 
 
 ' WUliams, "The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 494-500- 
 
 * Martin, " A Cycle of Cathay," pp. 91, 92. 
 
 S The Illustrated Missionary News, March, 1895, p. 42. 
 
 • "The myrmidons of the law are often violent oppressors. In this district 
 three innkeepers, who merely went along with the crowd to view a corpse, were 
 assessed in sums of money equal to $700, $500, $200, respectively, and paid it to 
 the runners, rather than take the chances of going before the magistrate in connec 
 tion with the case— murder in open daylight. In every town and village there are 
 men, sometimes wealthy, known by the public as 'bullies,' to whom fees must be 
 given or much would be impossible of accomplishment. In this town a proverb runs : 
 ' Cleaning the public well, a small bully; getting up theatricals, a big bully.' The 
 
262 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In Korea the same terrible system of " squeezing " is founij. Any 
 one who possesses money is liable to be the victim of extortion.^ A 
 Korean is taxed at a ruinous rate for the privilege 
 Official mulcting in of engaging in any honest industry, and he cannot 
 Korea. ggU the products of his toil or transport them from 
 
 place to place without running the gantlet of tax 
 stations on the roads and navigable rivers, at intervals sometimes of 
 only a few miles apart. The result is that no Korean can succeed with- 
 out enhsting against himself a ruinous system of extortion. Industry 
 and prosperity are impossible, since the official classes are forever on 
 the alert to crush and mulct without mercy all who by honest diligence 
 and thrift are striving to accumulate the rewards of labor. The re- 
 cent revolution and upheaval in Korea were due to these intolerable 
 conditions. The taxes imposed upon the people were so heavy that 
 they became a prohibitive tariii on all kinds of production.^ An in- 
 cident is narrated by the Rev. D. L. Gifford, an American Presbyte- 
 rian missionary, which illustrates the ingenious methods of extortion 
 that are by no means uncommon in the experience of well-to-do 
 Koreans. He relates how a prosperous farmer received an official 
 message from Seoul that a title had been conferred upon him, but with 
 the honor came a prompt intimation that he was expected to pay for 
 it, and there followed a series of exactions which it was dangerous for 
 him to contest, all on the score of an empty honor which some power- 
 ful official at the capital had made the ostensible occasion for ex- 
 tortion.3 
 
 Nothing, however, can surpass the story of extortion which we meet 
 in the history of Mohammedan rule in Turkey and Persia. Taxation 
 in Turkey has been a species of grinding tyranny for centuries. The 
 officials are accustomed to sell for a liberal consideration the right of 
 
 tax for these two things is collected by the bullies, with, of course, perfectly well- 
 understood share of the amounts subscribed." — Rev. Donald MacGillivray (C. P. M. ), 
 Chu-Wang, China. 
 
 1 Savage-Landor, " Corea," p. 163. The author further writes in this connec- 
 tion the following paragraph : 
 
 "'What is the use of working and making money,' said a Corean once to me, 
 'if, when the work is done and the money made, it is taken from you by the offi- 
 cials? You are worn oufby the work you have done, yet are as poor as before, that is, 
 mind you, if you are fortunate enough not to be exiled to a distant province by the 
 magistrate who has enriched himself at your expense.' " 
 
 2 7'/4^iI/«ji!»^i'>- (Shanghai), November, 1894, p. 162; The GospeltM '^11 Lands, 
 September, 1895, pp. 452-454. 
 
 .3 Woman's Work Jor Woman, August, 1893, p. tia. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 263 
 
 collecting the taxes, and those who have purchased this privilege have 
 the authority of the Government at their command to enforce collec- 
 tion. They must not only reimburse themselves, 
 but also secure a handsome advance upon what The grinding tyranny 
 they have paid. Their methods are arbitrary and ° *^and°Per8ia"''*^ 
 terrifying, and the agents they employ cruel and ra- 
 pacious. The poor peasantry of Turkey have been doubly, and some- 
 times trebly, taxed. The Government in the background has often 
 withheld receipts, and then brought in a demand either for double pay- 
 ment or for arrears of taxes, to the dismay and despair of its victims. 
 Much has appeared in current hterature of late concerning the ruinous 
 system of taxation in Mohammedan lands.i In Persia the methods of 
 taxation are similar to those which prevail in Turkey. Each province 
 has its governor, and under him are numerous officials over cities or 
 districts. These appointments are universally by purchase, and out of 
 each sub-governor's domain must come not only funds sufficient to 
 satisfy the demands of his superiors in the Government, but also to 
 reimburse himself and provide an amount in anticipation of his future 
 needs, as before long it is likely he will be supplanted and must pur- 
 chase another position. Beneath these superior officials are agents, 
 collectors, and subordinate functionaries, who must also receive what 
 they will consider their share of the spoils. The same custom of farm- 
 ing out the taxes exists, and the purchaser is usually some powerful 
 chief, or agha, with whom regular taxes would go but a Kttle way in 
 satisfying his demands. He must impose double or extra taxes, and 
 exact forced labor or gifts or numerous fees as his perquisites. Thus 
 the very idea of government becomes identified with an endless round 
 
 1 " The financial management of the Government is probably the worst in exis- 
 tence. Properly speaking, Turkey has no finance. There are revenues, but no 
 regular way of collecting them. There are salaries, but no regular way of paying 
 them. The result is chaos. From the Sultan down to the lowest grade in the pub- 
 lic service it is a scramble for money, each one getting all he can and giving up as 
 little as possible. Many of the revenues are mortgaged to pay the loans contracted, 
 chiefly during the extravagant reign of Abdul Aziz, and are under the absolute con- 
 trol of a commission of foreigners. The tithes are farmed out to the highest bidders, 
 who have the whole power of the Government at their disposal to enable them to 
 collect all they can, on the general principle of a division of any profits between the 
 collectors and the authorities. Tax-receipts are repeatedly refused, so that when 
 subsequent collectors come they can take advantage of their absence to collect back 
 taxes to the very limit of possibility. Enumerators for personal taxes make their 
 lists small, so as to lessen the amount for which they are held responsible, while in 
 view of this they levy on the community as high as the community will give. Im- 
 porters try to secure undervaluation of their goods, landowners undervaluation of 
 
264 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of extortion.i The central Government is not often an active partici- 
 pant in these vexatious exactions; the sub-officials are usually the 
 guilty parties. The late Shah Naser-ed-Din a few days before his 
 assassination issued a jubilee proclamation abohshing all taxes upon 
 meat and bread throughout his realm. This, however, did not apply 
 to the produce of the soil, nor to flocks and herds, but simply to meat 
 as sold in the market and to bread as it comes from the baker. The 
 whole system of taxation is in a hopeless tangle everywhere through- 
 out the Mohammedan world, except where some foreign jurisdiction 
 supervises its working. Nothing can be said of all North Africa under 
 unrestricted Moslem rule which is substantially different in its tenor 
 from what has been said of Turkey and Persia. Of the district gov- 
 ernors of Morocco it is reported upon good authority that their admin- 
 istration " is marked by cruelties and extortions on an infamous scale. 
 Myriads of acres of fine tracts of soil lie in ' flat idleness ' on account 
 of the burdens imposed by tax-gatherers." ^ 
 
 We can hardly pursue this theme further, although much remains 
 to be said. Certainly one of the most urgent calls for reform in the 
 universal government of the non-Christian world is the readjustment 
 and reconstruction of the whole system of taxation. 
 
 their land, peasants hide their grain, and men will often bear imprisonment, and even 
 the severest beating, rather than reveal their deposits. 
 
 " In case of special need at Constantinople, requisition is made upon some prov- 
 ince for a certain sum. Forthwith all the efforts of every member of the adminis- 
 tration of that province are directed to two things : ( i ) to lessen if possible the 
 amount demanded ; (2) to secure for themselves a portion of the money that must be 
 collected. Spies and informers abound on every hand, and exceptional harvests, 
 fortunate investments, fat legacies, are made the pretexts of all sorts of pressure. 
 Salaries are always in arrears for months, and sometimes years. The announcement 
 that the treasury is to pay a month's salary to the clerks of the departments, or to 
 the army and navy, is a matter of public comment and advertisements in the news- 
 papers. But people must live. Hence bribery and extortion rule everywhere. 
 Judges, officials of every grade, even heads of departments, rely for their support 
 not upon the Government itself, but upon what influence they can exert on the 
 lives and fortunes of others, and upon appropriating at least a little of what 
 passes through their hands."— Bliss, " Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities," pp. 
 290, 291. 
 
 Cf. Laurie, " Missions and Science" (The Ely Volume), second edition, revised, 
 pp. 68, 69 ; Greene, " The Armenian Crisis in Turkey," chap. iii. ; " Annual Report 
 of the American Bible Society, 1894," p. 134; The Independent, January 17, 1895! 
 The Missionary Review of the World, January, 1896, pp. 52, 53. 
 
 1 Bishop, " Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. ii., p. 199; Wilson, " Per- 
 sian Life and Customs," pp. 130, 273. 
 
 2 Johnston, " Missionary Landscapes in the Dark Continent," p. 38. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 265 
 
 3. The Subversion of Legal Rights.— The guardianship of the 
 rights of its citizens is one of the noblest functions of the State. It is 
 characteristic of civihzed governments that the 
 rights of person and of property are, as a rule, The benign mission of 
 scrupulously guarded. The shelter and protection community, 
 
 of the law are, in theory at least, accorded to its 
 humblest citizen. We who are born to the enjoyment of freedom and 
 the security of civilization hardly know how to estimate at its proper 
 value that nice adjustment of the State to the service of the citizen so 
 that his individual rights are conserved, his person defended, and his 
 possessions guarded from attack and spohation. It is one of the mar- 
 vels of the modern State that all this is accomplished while at the same 
 time the highest interests of the commonweal are jealously guarded. 
 The precise, impartial, unswerving workings of judicial and administra- 
 tive law, so far as justice sanctions, in the interests of the individual 
 citizen, and the almost automatic security of the guarantee which he 
 possesses, in common with all others, that he is neither to be defrauded 
 nor mulcted, have become among civilized peoples such an essential 
 feature of ordinary government that we fail to realize the significance 
 of the facts or the value of the boon. Whatever imperfection may at- 
 tend the administration of the legal codes, even though a miscarriage 
 of justice should sometimes occur, it remains true that, except in the 
 case of improper legislation, the law is an instrument of justice for the 
 help and protection of all who need its intervention. 
 
 In the non-Christian world this majestic interposition of law for the 
 security of individual rights cannot be counted upon, although it does 
 exist in a somewhat haphazard way. The menace of aggression is 
 rarely lifted, and, without the assurance of legal refuge and protection, 
 is the cause of much popular misery and discontent as well as indus- 
 trial paralysis. Where the will of rulers is the foundation of law, with 
 little practical restraint except such as the fear of popular revolution 
 imposes, the temptation to make sport of human rights is usually too 
 great to be resisted. In the irrepressible conflict between the authority 
 of rulers and the private rights of individual subjects, httle advantage 
 has been gained by the latter among savage or semi-civilized races. 
 In some of the more prominent nations of the non-Christian world the 
 development of constitutional limitations, the establishment of judicial 
 restraints, and the evolution of legislative assemblies have made no 
 perceptible advance for ages. The misuse of the governing power and 
 the misdirection of its authority for selfish and despotic ends have be- 
 come characteristic of semi-civilized and barbarous rule. The indi- 
 
266 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 vidual has been the victim, and the subversion of rights which are his 
 in theory has been the invariable result. 
 
 Of all Oriental nations, none can compare with Japan in her will- 
 ingness to place herself under constitutional restrictions and adopt the 
 
 principles of civilized government. The new 
 
 Japan an exception in civil and penal codes which havc been promul- 
 
 Orientai history. gated indicate an astonishing development in the 
 
 direction of Western civilization, and the unanimity 
 and dignity which have marked their incorporation into her system of 
 government are greatly to the credit of the Japanese. Japan, how- 
 ever, is an exception in Oriental history. We have simply to cross the 
 narrow sea to the mainland of Asia and we come at once upon the old 
 traditional system of despotism. 
 
 In Korea the devices for robbing a man of his earnings or confis- 
 cating his possessions are both numerous and effective.^ Mr. Henry 
 
 Norman has referred in some detail to this exe- 
 
 Korea foUows the rule crable feature of Korean maladministration. He 
 
 of spoliation. quotes from an oiBcial report as follows: "The 
 
 rapacity and cruelty of the officials are not con- 
 ducive to the accumulation of wealth. All stimulus or inducement to 
 increase his possessions and give himself comforts is denied the middle- 
 class Korean ; for he is not allowed to enjoy the results of his labor 
 and industry, never feeling sure that the little property he may have 
 (or even his life) is safe from official despotism, and consequently the 
 people have become dispirited and indifferent. Safety and security 
 are found in obscurity only." ^ The rights of ownership in property are 
 not, however, the only ones that are violated. More sacred domains 
 are ruthlessly invaded. It is not uncommon that confiscation extends 
 to the wife and daughters, thus inflicting a gross and cruel wrong in 
 violation of rights which are recognized throughout all human society.' 
 In China official robbery is by no means uncommon, and many are 
 the expedients for accomplishing it under the guise of legality. Even 
 
 foreign residents of China have had most vexa- 
 
 ^o'fofficuuln cVina'* *^°'^* experience of the ability of officials to tamper 
 
 Turkey, and Persia! with every property right, even to the extent of 
 
 persecution and violence. In the Turkish Empire 
 legal rights, even those fully acknowledged in Turkish law, are simply 
 the sport of officialdom. The victims are usually natives of the empire, 
 
 1 The Missionary, October, 1894, p. 441 j Gilmore, " Korea from Its Capital," 
 pp. 28, 29. 2 Norman, " Peoples and Politics of the Far East," pp. 347, 348, 
 
 » Ibid., pp. 349, 350; Gilmore, " Korea from Its Capital," pp. 29, 30, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRistlAN WORLD 267 
 
 but of late foreign property has been destroyed or subjected to arbi- 
 trary and vexatious meddling.^ In Persia confiscation is usually one 
 of the penalties of conversion to Christianity on the part of Moslems, 
 and in some instances painful mutilation of the person, or death, has 
 followed. The Persian agha will not only lay violent hands upon some 
 young Christian woman, but upon the plea of her having embraced 
 Islam will claim her property also.^ Mrs. Bishop, in her letters from 
 Persia, touches upon the well-known facility with which official robbery 
 is accomplished.^ Even in India, until quite recently, the losing of 
 caste was held to involve also the forfeiting of property,* and at the 
 present time in some of the Native States conversion to Christianity 
 imposes legal disabilities which are most unjust and vexatious. 
 
 In Africa, unhappily, the native has been the victim not alone of 
 the rapacity of local native governments, but the early history of colo. 
 nization, especially in South Africa, has been 
 marked by gross violation on the part of the Dutch 
 
 ^ . ... Insecurity in Africa, 
 
 of the rights of the natives. The great injustice 
 and ill-treatment which attended the aggressions of 
 the Dutch colonists have left an indehble stain upon their good name.^ 
 Among native tribes the confiscation of property, and even of wives 
 and children, is all too common. Nobody saves in Dahomey, lest the 
 king should seize the savings. Where the witch-doctor " smells out " 
 some supposed guilty party, although in most instances the suspected 
 person may be absolutely innocent, the immediate confiscation of his 
 property is in order, and he may be thankful if he escapes with his 
 hfe.« 
 
 The recognition of the individual and respect for his legal rights 
 are points in which there is much to be learned throughout the realms 
 of backward civilization. 
 
 1 The Independent, May l6, 1895, pp. 14-16; The Missionary Herald, April, 
 1896, pp. 146-149. 
 
 2 Auraham, " The Persia of To-day," p. 72. 
 
 3 " In Persia a reputation for wealth is the last thing a rich man desires. To 
 elevate a gateway or to give any external sign of affluence is to make himself a mark 
 for the official rapacity which spares none. The policy is to let a man grow quietly 
 rich, to 'let the sheep's wool grow,' but as soon as he shows any enjoyment of 
 wealth to deprive him of his gains, according to a common Persian expression, ' He 
 is ripe ; he must be squeezed.' "—Bishop, " Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. 
 i., pp. 100, loi. 
 
 * Home, " The Story of the London Missionary Society," p. 279. 
 6 Ibid., pp. 56-59 ; Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," p. 51. 
 « Work and Workers in the Mission Field, September, 1894, p. 368; Illustrated 
 Africa, June, 1895, p. 9. 
 
268 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 4. Corruption and Bribery.— Crookedness in official life and 
 gross betrayal of trust in public service have been so manifestly im- 
 plied in much that has been already said that only a brief reference to 
 these aspects of maladministration in heathen society is needed. 
 
 China seems to he. facile j>rinceps in the r61e of official corruption. 
 There are no doubt some men of integrity in pubHc service in the Chi- 
 nese Empire, but they are rare and refreshing ex- 
 Thc characteristic role ceptions to the general rule. There would be no 
 of Chinese officials, improper emphasis given to the simple facts of the 
 situation to say that the most characteristic thing 
 in Chinese officialdom, from the highest mandarin to the lowest " bully " 
 in a country hamlet, is the misuse of official position, either by the tak- 
 ing of bribes, or the imposition of blackmail, or the accumulation of 
 private gains by the betrayal of pubUc trust.i As far back as the 
 eleventh century, in connection with the temporary trial of a populist 
 experiment in Chinese government, when special opportunity was 
 afforded to the people to enter the realm of pubUc service, the rapacity, 
 peculation, and corruption of the administration brought into perma- 
 nent disrepute the populistic schemes of a noted reformer of that age.^ 
 The traditional system, however, from that day to this, has preserved 
 and exemplified with unbroken continuity the transformation of official 
 opportunity into a means of private emolument as the indisputable pre- 
 rogative of public office.^ The result is disastrous to the governmental 
 service. Office becomes the goal of unscrupulous venality, and is the 
 prize of low cunning, intrigue, and bribery. Not that all mandarins 
 are always bad, but the system is so incorrigibly corrupt that it is 
 almost sure to ruin even a good man. It is next to impossible to secure 
 
 1 The Rev. W. Muirhead, D.D. (L. M. S.), Shanghai, China, in a letter to the 
 author, mentions as among the prominent social evils of China the prevalent official 
 corruption, referring especially to the magistrates. His words are as follows: 
 " Though the officials are trained in the ethics of the country, and are chosen for 
 their literary and intellectual ability, and supposed to be most highly influenced by 
 moral and humane considerations, they are looked upon generally as selfish, rapa- 
 cious, and only in few cases governing for the best interests of the people. They 
 are a bjrword everywhere, and the crowds of scholars aiming at similar positions in 
 life have the same ends in view and in due course act accordingly. " 
 
 2 Cf. an article on " Chinese Populism," by William Elliot Griffis, D.D., in The 
 Independent of September 24, 1896. 
 
 ' " The financial support of the administration of the Government thus rests 
 upon a deliberately adopted policy of allowing each official to fleece his subjects. The 
 game, then, with nearly every one of them, is how to do this fleecing in the best 
 way, and how to judge shrewdly just where the limit of endurance is on the part of 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 269 
 
 an appointment to the public service without purchasing it, either 
 directly or indirectly, and once in office, whatever may be its grade, 
 private advantage becomes the guiding principle of action. This is 
 especially true of all underlings and minor officials, who in many in- 
 stances receive no regular salary, but are expected to live by what 
 they can extract from the people in the discharge of their function 
 or by the misuse of their authority. In some of the cities of China 
 there are as many as a thousand unpaid police, who have no visible 
 means of support except the extortion which their position renders 
 possible.i 
 
 It is a notorious fact that justice is a marketable commodity in all 
 Chinese courts. Every complaint, every eifort to secure the interposi- 
 tion of the law, as well as every attempt to escape 
 its penalty, is a business proceeding and a matter The enormities of cor- 
 of finance, pure and simple. " The amount of ruption in china, 
 money given to the underiings of the court deter- 
 mines the speed with which the complaint reaches the hands of the 
 magistrate ; and then if there be no personal gain in the case the mag- 
 istrate gives the plea no attention, plaintiffs being many, and lucrative 
 business pressing." Thus writes Miss Fielde in " A Corner of Cathay " 
 (p. 122), and she goes on to describe in considerable detail what is 
 involved in the further prosecution of the case, and the wonderfully 
 ingenious methods by which all legal ventures in China are made to 
 yield lucrative gains from both plaintiff and defendant to the magistrate 
 and court attendants. Current proverbs illustrate the popular estimate 
 of all legal processes in China.^ So serious is the moral bankruptcy of 
 Chinese officialdom that the sense of honor, the consciousness of pub- 
 
 the people. They know as well as any one that a general enlightenment of the peo- 
 ple would be a death-blow to their corrupt gains, and therefore they will fight against 
 the ■ new civilization ' until they are themselves either morally regenerated or over- 
 powered."— Rev. Henry V. Noyes (P. B. F. M. N.), Canton, China. 
 
 1 Williams, " The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., p. 476. 
 
 " In the misappropriation of public funds and peculation of all kinds in materi- 
 als, government stores, rations, wages, and salaries, the Chinese ofificials are skilled 
 experts, and are never surprised at any disclosures."— /(JjV/., vol. i., p. 477. 
 
 Cf. also Martin, "A Cycle of Cathay," p. 333; Douglas, " Society in China," 
 pp. 33, 86-91 ; Norman, " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," pp. 266-268, 
 282-285. 
 
 2 Among them are the following quoted by Miss Fielde: " It is better to live 
 on garbage than to go to law " ; " To win a lawsuit reduces one to penury " ; " If 
 you consort with beggars you may have a handful of rice given to you, but if you 
 go among lawyers you will lose your last coin " ("A Corner of Cathay," p. 127). 
 
270 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 lie trust, and the demands of patriotism are alike powerless to stay the 
 habitual rascality of the average Chinese office-holder. Even the 
 recent struggle with Japan seemed to afford an opportunity for gross 
 betrayal of the Government by some of the highest authorities. Well- 
 informed observers of Chinese methods have expressed the opinion that 
 her collapse was due, more than from any other cause, to the dishon- 
 esty of her administration.! The facility with which the scales of jus- 
 tice can be turned by the timely casting of a coin upon either side is 
 well illustrated in a description by Dr. MacKay of the method of pro- 
 cedure in a Chinese yamen.* 
 
 There is one department of Chinese revenue which claims special 
 notice as an exception to the usual course of procedure. It is the 
 Maritime Customs Service for the collection of the revenue derived 
 from foreign customs, under the supervision of an English official 
 as Inspector-General. The Chinese revenue system as a whole is 
 complicated and cumbersome, and is the happy hunting-ground of a 
 
 1 The North China Herald of Shanghai printed the following indictment in an 
 editorial upon China's humiliation : " With wealth practically unlimited, with soldiers 
 simply innumerable, with fortresses believed to be impregnable, and with a strong 
 navy, her defenses went down like a house of cards, as soon as they were puifed on 
 from the outside. . . . Here is a problem not only well worth solving, but of which 
 a correct solution is a vital necessity. To us Europeans it is, as we have shown, 
 simplicity itself. It seems to be fully comprised in one word, = . . dishonesty "~ 
 Quoted in The Missionary, July, 1895, p. 299. 
 
 2 " From Far Formosa," pp. 105-107. 
 
 A resident missionary in another section of the empire writes as follows : " It is 
 a common saying that ' right does not avail in courts — only money avails.' In most 
 cases it is true that the man who pays the biggest fee to the magistrate or the one 
 who has most influence in the community gains the suit. Rogues escape the clutches 
 of the law by sending a bribe to the constables. If this is liberal enough, the con- 
 stables will allow the rogue to escape even at the risk of a beating for their failure to 
 catch him. If he is caught and tried and sentenced, the degree of severity with which 
 /the punishment is inflicted depends upon the amount of money he is willing to give 
 the constables and lictors. The magistrates will all take bribes, and so will all the 
 officials, from the lowest to the highest, and nobody is ashamed to do it. Theoreti- 
 cally, office is conferred for scholarship, the third degree rendering a man eligible for 
 office ; but the degrees may all be bought, and are, in fact, openly purchased con- 
 stantly. It requires money and influence to get into office after one has obtained his 
 degree, and promotion in office comes also only by the use of money. The legitimate 
 salary of all officers is unjustly low, and the chances for bribes and squeezes are 
 very many. It is a rare man who will not make the most of them. Indeed, the 
 chief motive in seeking office is ' to get rich,' and it is almost the only avenue to 
 wealth. By law a man has a right to appeal to a superior officer if he thinks his 
 suit has been unjustly decided, but in case of an appeal the judge who has tried the 
 case has only to send a present of money to his superior, and the appeal is ruled out 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 271 
 
 horde of hungry officials.i The establishment of the Imperial Maritime 
 Customs under foreign supervision has grown out of the exigencies 
 of the situation, the Chinese administration failing 
 utterly to discharge the duty with tolerable honesty. The Maritime Customs 
 It originated in a local provision for the administra- exceiientTewtd 
 tion of foreign customs at Shanghai by agreement 
 between the Tao-tai of Shanghai and the British, American, and French 
 Consuls, in 1854, which stipulated that the service at the port of Shanghai 
 should be put in charge of a foreigner. The first inspector appointed 
 was Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Wade. This new system was subse- 
 quently extended so as to include in its supervision all treaty ports. It 
 has grown in favor with the Chinese authorities, who recognize the in- 
 tegrity of their foreign servants, and highly appreciate the security and 
 perceptible increment of their revenue. The present incumbent in the 
 
 or remanded to the same judge to be retried. In case the appellant can make a 
 still larger present he stands some chance, not otherwise. Military officers are 
 no better men, and they have still more chances to practise oppression and dis- 
 honesty. The soldiers' pay and rations pass through their hands, and they make 
 a good percentage oil these, as they draw pay for full companies when they 
 are far from full — possibly less than half full. Officers deceive their superiors and 
 their men, and their men desert them in the day of battle — yes, they smell the 
 battle afar off and desert betimes."— Mrs. C. W. Mateer (P. B. F. M. N.), Tung- 
 chow, China. 
 
 1 Mr. Allen, the British Constd at Foochow, in his last report on the trade of that 
 port, says that ' ' an obstacle to the development of commerce in China, less easily 
 remedied than bad roads, is a faulty, not to say an utterly rotten and corrupt, system 
 of collecting revenue, wherein the vested interests involved are so enormous that 
 nothing short of the reform of the whole fiscal arrangements of China can set it right. 
 The system of farming the taxes, or at least making the official in charge of them 
 remit a certain sum every year, while he puts the balance into his ovni pocket, in- 
 sures the largest possible collection at the greatest possible cost and the least possi- 
 ble benefit to the Government. It is said that the cost of collecting likin is seventy 
 per cent, of the total sum realized." In Foochow there are four separate establish- 
 ments levying taxes on merchandise, each one competing with the others and look- 
 ing on the revenue collected by them as a loss to itself. These are: (i) The Mari- 
 time Custom-House, levying duties on all goods imported or exported in foreign 
 bottoms or in Chinese steamers. (2) The native Custom-House, levying duties on 
 junk-borne cargo. (3) The Likin Office. The likin tax, originally a temporary 
 war tax, is supposed to provide for the wants of the provincial administration and is 
 under the control of the provincial treasurer. It is a universal excise duty from 
 which nothing is exempt, and is so burdensome that it is occasionally resisted by 
 riots. (4) The Lo Ti Shut, or Octroi Office. Intense jealousy of the foreign customs 
 revenue exists in all other revenue departments of China.— Condensed from an arti- 
 cle on "The Effects of the Chinese Revenue System on Foreign Trade," in the 
 London Mail, August 12, 1896, 
 
272 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND . SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 office of Inspector-General (or I. G., as he is familiarly called) is Sir 
 Robert Hart, whose distinguished career and valuable services make a 
 unique chapter in modern Chinese history.i It seems more than prob- 
 able that the model administration of the foreign customs may have 
 a marked influence in helping China to reform her entire system of 
 finance. 
 
 Korea seems to be a rival of China in official dishonesty. The 
 Government is robbed in one direction, and the people in another. 
 The official class, if one can judge from the testi- 
 Official salary-grabbing mony which every one acquainted with the facts 
 in Korea. unites in giving, exists for the purpose of defraud- 
 
 ing the Government and " squeezing " the people. 
 All financial administration is simply chaotic. In a recent report ren- 
 dered to the Japanese Government by Count Inouye, he describes at 
 considerable length the governmental and financial status in Korea. 
 His forcible language speaks for itself.^ In his " Problems of the Far 
 East " Mr. Curzon speaks of the immense army of office-holders dis- 
 tributed through the eight provinces and three hundred and thirty-two 
 prefectures of the kingdom, among whom only the superior ranks re- 
 ceive any salary, and this usually in arrears, while the rest must butter 
 
 1 Dr. Martin has a special chapter in "A Cycle of Cathay'' on "Sir Robert 
 Hart and the Customs Service" (part ii., chap, xiii.), in which he gives much in- 
 teresting information based upon personal friendship with the Inspector and thorough 
 knowledge of his services. 
 
 Mr. R. S. Gundry, in his recent volume, " China Present and Past," thus sum- 
 marizes the personnel of the service : " The work is carried on, under the Inspector- 
 General, by a staff of 30 commissioners, 12 deputy commissioners, and 132 assis- 
 tants, besides clerks and others, who bring up the indoor staff to 206. The outdoor 
 staff comprises 415 tide-surveyors, examiners, tide-waiters, etc. There are 6 armed 
 revenue cruisers, commanded by Europeans, but manned by Chinese, besides a num- 
 ber of armed launches. The entire service employs about 753 foreigners and 3540 
 Chinese, or a grand total of 4293. The annual cost is about ;^400,ooo a year, while 
 the revenue collected in 1893 amounted to close on ;^4,ooo,ooo " (p. 197). 
 
 ^ " There was no practical distinction between the Court and the Administration ; 
 no attempt to clearly differentiate the functions of the one from those of the other. 
 There were no financial laws of any kind ; no account-books. If the Court wanted 
 money, it put its hands into the coffers of the official section outside the Household ; 
 if the officials wanted money, they had recourse to the coffers of the Court. Neither 
 made any scrutiny into the objects of the other's expenditure. When the coffers of 
 both were empty, the provincial Governors were required to find the requisite sum. 
 It was always a welcome mandate to the Governors, for neither the method of col- 
 lection nor the amount collected was ever closely examined. Each Governor adopted 
 whatever system of requisition promised most prolific results, and the prison doors 
 stood always open for reluctant subscribers. If prisoners died of torture, starvation, 
 or disease before they untied their purse-strings, no inconvenient questions were 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 273 
 
 their own bread as best they can.i In an article on " Korean Finance," 
 published in The Korean Repository, April, i8g6, the author states that 
 the revenue which is paid by the people is double the amount which 
 the Government actually receives. " More than one half goes astray 
 after it leaves the hands of the people. Where does it go? It is evi- 
 dent that it goes to fill the pockets of these officials, whose business it 
 is to squeeze the people and rob the Government." 
 
 In the Turkish Empire and Persia official corruption and a well- 
 nigh universal practice of bribery are habitual features of governmen- 
 tal administration. In both these typical Oriental 
 empires an elaborate theory of good government Bribery at flood-tide in 
 exists, with hardly any perceptible application in Turkey and Persia, 
 practice. Principles and rules are on record as the 
 impressive symbols of law and order to be appealed to in times of in- 
 convenient exposure as the supposed programme of official procedure, 
 but that they have any control over executive action is so palpably false 
 that it would be a waste of time to assert it. In fact, the "itching 
 palm " is not found among secular officials only, but it lurks under 
 priestly robes also, and ecclesiastical officials are hardly less alert than 
 State functionaries to the material advantages which the use of author- 
 ity can be made to yield. The native press itself admits the existence 
 of this serious fault in ecclesiastical circles.^ Mrs. Bishop, in her vol- 
 
 asked. Neither need accounts be rendered of the sums collected ; any excess over 
 and above the contribution called for by the Court went into the pockets of the local 
 Governors. To get a person of substance into prison was officialdom's best oppor- 
 tunity. Hence no line was drawn between criminal procedure and civil procedure, 
 nor did any preliminary inquiry stand between a defendant and the gaol. So soon 
 as a suit was duly lodged against a man the officials were competent to thrust him 
 into prison at once. 
 
 " Against the terrible abuses practised under such a system there was no redress, 
 for the idea that an administration's first duty is to secure the lives and properties of 
 the people under its sway did not enter into the theory of government in Korea. 
 Government, indeed, had no practical significance beyond the sale of offices. 
 Every official had to buy his post, purchasing either from the central authority or 
 from the local, the necessary funds being furnished by usurers, who exacted interest 
 at the rate of twenty per cent, per month, and the official, having no assurance as to 
 the time that might remain at his disposal before his post was resold to some one 
 else, lost not a moment in recouping his original outlay." — Quoted from the Korean 
 correspondence of the London Mail, August 21, 1895. 
 
 1 " Problems of the Far East," p. 173. 
 
 2 Cf. an article by the Rev. S. G. Wilson, of Tabriz, on " Church Reform — a 
 Coming Armenian Watchword," in The Church at Home and Abroad, October, 1895, 
 p. 309. In this article Mr. Wilson quotes extensively from native Armenian jour- 
 nals, in which the statement made above is confirmed. Mr. Wilson's recent book, 
 
274 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 umes entitled "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," while giving full 
 credit to the energy and personal zeal for reform manifest in the ad- 
 ministration of the late Shah, refers in strong language to the fact that 
 "justice seems to be here, much as in Turkey, a marketable commod- 
 ity, which the working classes are too poor to buy." She speaks again 
 of " the inherent rottenness of Persian administration, an abyss of offi- 
 cial corruption and infamy without a bottom or a shore, a corruption 
 of heredity and tradition, unchecked by pubUc opinion or the teachings 
 of even an elementary education in morals and the rudiments of justice. 
 There are few men pure enough to judge their fellows or to lift clean 
 hands to heaven, and power and place are valued for their opportu- 
 nities for plunder." i In Turkey the condition of the secular administra- 
 tion is so notorious that no one acquainted with the country or having 
 had opportunity to observe the methods of civil and criminal procedure 
 would venture to question the existence of bribery and corruption 
 among the official classes. The most explicit and damaging statements 
 upon this point are to be found in the official communications of 
 diplomatic residents in reports to their respective governments. Mr. 
 Wilson, British Consul-General in Anatoha, writes that " the most open 
 and shameless bribery is practised, from highest to lowest." Mr. 
 Everett, Vice-Consul at Erzerum, says : " The first consideration of the 
 administrators of justice is the amount of money that can be extorted 
 from an individual, and the second is his creed." The spirit which 
 animates the courts of Asia Minor is well defined as " fanaticism tem- 
 pered by corruption." ^ 
 
 In fact, the bane of semi-civilized governments is the uncontrollable 
 venality of official hfe. It was as bad in India as elsewhere a few 
 generations back, and were it not for the vigorous oversight of English 
 authority and the fact that British officials are chiefly in the places of 
 responsibility, there would be nothing to guarantee purity of administra- 
 tion to-day. Our limits of space will not permit us to dwell longer 
 upon this theme. 
 
 5. Massacrk and Pillage.— References have already been made, 
 in several specifications under a previous group in this lecture, to the 
 brutality and rapine which usually attend tribal warfare. In this con- 
 
 " Persian Life and Customs," contains many references to the misnse of official 
 position in that country, especially among the minor officials (pp. 67, 179, 182, and 
 introduction, p. 15). 
 
 1 "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan,'' vol. i., p. 103; vol. ji., p. 257. 
 
 8 Greene, " The Armenian Crisis in Turkey," pp. 74, 113. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 275 
 
 nection we shall say a word concerning wanton bloodshed and spoli- 
 ation as a national policy. It is not often that the purpose of exter- 
 mination is dehberately adopted and put into exe- 
 cution by an organized government. There are, to Extermination as a 
 be sure, some historic precedents for this ghastly national policy, 
 project, but they have usually taken the form of 
 plots or conspiracies rather than an accepted and predetermined plan 
 of action conceived and executed by the government itself .1 That this 
 poUcy is still a possibility of Oriental statecraft hardly admits of ques- 
 tion, however, to any intelligent student of events in the Turkish 
 Empire at the present time. The Armenian nation, a Christian peo- 
 ple who are so unhappy as to be among the subject races of the Otto- 
 man Porte, numbering within Turkish territory possibly two millions, 
 have become the victims of the political rage and the fanatical barbar- 
 ity of their Turkish masters. In common with other Christian races, 
 they have a long and serious grievance against Ottoman misrule, which 
 the Powers of Europe have hitherto sought through vain and empty 
 diplomatic pledges to remedy .^ 
 
 A few restless spirits among the Armenians, with vague revolution- 
 ary aims, and inspired by hopes of European intervention in the event 
 of disorder, sought to arouse resistance to the in- 
 tolerable exactions and oppressive wrongs which The Armenian 
 characterize Turkish rule. The effort was abortive massacres, 
 
 and hopeless from the start and in no way involved 
 the Armenian people as a whole. It served, however, to arouse the 
 wrath of the Turkish rulers, especially the Sultan Abdul Hamid, to be 
 known forever after in history as the " Great Assassin," and a policy 
 of extermination was entered upon. Its execution has found willing 
 instruments in the Kurdish brigands, organized by the Government 
 under the name of the Hamidieh Cavalry, and the Moslem populace, 
 who have joined in the bloodshed and pillage with relish. The awful 
 results are well known to the world.' The fiendish cruelty of these 
 
 1 Cf. The Contemporary Review, September, 1896, article by Professor W. M. 
 Ramsay, on "Two Massacres in Asia Minor," and "Harper's Book of Facts,'' 
 under the heading " Massacres," p. 494, for many illustrations. 
 
 2 Treaty of Berlin, Article 61 : " The Sublime Porte engages to realize with- 
 out delay those ameliorations and reforms which local needs require in the proviaces 
 inhabited by the Armenians, and guarantees their security against the Circassians and 
 the Kurds. It undertakes to make known, from time to time, the measures taken 
 with this object to the Powers, who will watch over their application.'' 
 
 ' The Rev. Edwin M. Bliss, D.D., in his volume on " Turkey and the Armenian 
 Atrocities," published in the spring of 1896, gives (p. 554) the follovring summary 
 
276 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRKSS 
 
 massacres has never been surpassed. Spoliation, rape, torture, agoniz- 
 ing assaults upon the person, dastardly sport with children, loathsome 
 brutality which no civilized journal would dare to describe, living holo- 
 causts, wholesale murder of an inoffensive population, carried on for 
 hours without cessation, and renewed day after day, robbery, looting, 
 burning of homes, and horrible criminal orgies have combined to make 
 a record of inhuman outrage upon Armenians, which the onlooking 
 Christian nations of the world have as yet utterly failed to restrain, a 
 fact which casts a shadow of ignominy over all Christendom.^ Sources 
 for the verification of these facts are not wanting.^ That the facts 
 themselves should be doubted or called in question by any one is due 
 either to a desire to cover them up, or is the result of that strange 
 passion for increduUty which asserts itself sooner or later in some minds 
 concerning almost .every great historic incident. This story of mas- 
 sacre, we fear, is not yet ended, and unless European Powers can agree 
 upon some policy of intervention, the Turkish Government will pur- 
 sue it to the bitter end. Massacre as a policy or as a mihtary expedient 
 is not new in Turkey ; it has been put into practice many times before.* 
 
 of results up to the beginning of that year. Since then other massacres have oc- 
 curred, notably that of Van in June, and of Constantinople in August, 1896, num- 
 bering, according to a conservative estimate, not less than 18,000 victims all told 
 up to November, 1896, which must now be added to the statements given below: 
 
 " Number of persons killed (almost entirely men) 50,000 
 
 " " houses and shops burned 12,600 
 
 " " " " plundered 47,000 
 
 " " persons forced to accept Mohammedanism 40,000 
 
 " " persons destitute 400,000" 
 
 1 As these sheets are going through the press (December, 1896), there are some 
 indications of impending intervention, which, let us hope, will result in effective mea- 
 sures for securing better order throughout Turkey. 
 
 2 Blue Books of the British Government, Turkey, Nos. 2 and 3, 1896, entitled 
 "Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, 1892-93"; ibid., 
 Turkey, No. 6, 1896, entitled" Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces 
 of Turkey, 1894-95 " ; The Contemporary Review, August, 1895, article by E. J. 
 Dillon on "The Condition of Armenia"; January, 1896, article by Mr. Dillon 
 entitled " Armenia: An Appeal " ; Christian Literature, February, 1896 (reprint of 
 the above articles) ; Greene, " The Armenian Crisis in Turkey " ; Bliss, " Turkey 
 and the Armenian Atrocities " ; correspondence of the London Times, April J, 1895 ; 
 symposium on "The Turkish Question" in The Independent, March J, 1896; 
 article on " The Situation in Armenia," by Grace N. Kimball, M.D., in The Outlook, 
 November 21, 1896; Bryce, " Transcaucasia and Ararat," newed. ; MacCoU, "The 
 Sultan and the Powers." See also Scribner's Magazine, January, 1897, p. 48. 
 
 ' The following figures, summarizing, with minor omissions, the Turkish mas- 
 sacres of this century, are taken from the best authorities : 
 
Graduating Class, 1894, American College for Girls, Constantinople. 
 
 Armenian Girls, Tabriz, Persia. 
 
 Wards of American Missions in Turkey and Persia. 
 
 (A. B. C. F, M.^ (P. B. F. M. N.) 
 
THE.-SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 277 
 
 The Kurds are not capable of conducting warfare on any other plan. 
 Their murderous raid into Persia in 1880, under Sheikh Obeidullah, 
 was marked by similar atrocities.^ 
 
 We turn from this recent illustration of Armenia as representative 
 of the policy of massacre, to look at the history of other nations. 
 China, upon occasion, resorts to indiscriminate 
 slaughter in order to exterminate her enemies, and Biood-thirst in China, 
 especially those in rebellion against her authority. India, and Africa. 
 If the Chinese officials could have their own way 
 with foreign residents throughout the empire, it is probable that mas- 
 sacre would be the order of the day. Indian history has its bloody 
 record of wholesale slaughter, especially in connection with the invasion 
 of Timux and his Tartar horde in the fourteenth century. The Afghan 
 invasions of the last century were simply a succession of massacres, 
 and " form one of the most appalling tales of bloodshed and wanton 
 cruelty ever inflicted on the human race." In one of the civil wars 
 which also afiBicted India, the Sultan of Gulburga, a fanatical Moslem, 
 took an oath upon the Koran that " he would not sheathe the sword till 
 he had put to death a hundred thousand infidels." Mohammedan 
 historians record in this connection that, from first to last, not less 
 than five hundred thousand " infidels " were butchered by the " true 
 believers." The massacres of 1857 indicate that the old spirit would 
 quickly revive were British Government to be supplanted by native rule. 
 
 In African warfare a general massacre is sure to follow a victory. 
 The Matabele, the Zulus, the Kaffirs, and numerous other bloodthirsty 
 tribes know no method of subjugation more attractive than this.^ 
 
 1822. In Scio and vicinity, 50,000 Greeks (R. G. Latham, " Russian and Turk," 
 p. 417). 
 
 1843. In Kurdistan, 10,000 Nestorians and Armenians (Layard, " Nineveh," 
 vol. i., p. 153, Amer. ed., and The Contemporary Review, January, 1895, p. 16). 
 
 i860. In Lebanon, 11,000 Syrians (Churchill, "Druses and Maronites," p. 
 219). 
 
 1876. In Bulgaria, 15,000 Bulgarians (Schuyler, quoted in The Independent, 
 January 10, 1895). See Senate Ex. Doc. No. 24, 44th Cong., 2d Bess., p. 8. 
 
 1877. In Bayazid, 1 100 Armenians (C. B. Norman, " Armenia and the Campaign 
 of 1877," p. 296). 
 
 1892. In Mosul, 2000 Yezidis (Parry's Report to the British Government). 
 
 1894. In Sassun, 12,000 Armenians (Greene, " The Armenian Crisis in Tur- 
 key," chap. i.). 
 
 Cf. article by Theodore Peterson, B.D., on " Turkey and the Armenian Crisis," 
 in The Catholic World, August, 1895, p. 667. 
 
 1 Wilson, " Persian Life and Customs," pp. 109-124. 
 
 a Wilmot, " The Expansion of South Africa," pp. 100, 119, 181, 186, l88. 
 
278 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Madagascar was the scene of massacres as a feature of State policy 
 in the reign of Ranavalona I. (1828-61). The South Sea Islands were 
 long the home of barbaric warfare marked by epochs of indiscriminate 
 slaughter. The passion for bloodshed still burns in millions of savage 
 breasts throughout the realms of barbarism. It is easily fanned into a 
 flame which bmns not less fiercely in this advanced period of history 
 than in past ages. 
 
 VI.— THE COMMERCIAL GROUP 
 
 (Evils incidental to low commercial standards or defective industrial methods) 
 
 Next to the national administration, in its influence upon social 
 peace, happiness, and prosperity, comes the commercial life of a peo- 
 ple, with its varied financial, industrial, and economic interests. If 
 the commercial status is weighted with low moral standards, fraudulent 
 methods, and paralyzing defects, trade is handicapped and there is little 
 financial confidence. If industrial scope and method are narrow and 
 clumsy, enterprise is balked and business is crippled. The state of 
 trade and productive industry has a direct influence upon social con- 
 ditions, so that moral hindrances or economic disabilities which affect 
 the commercial prosperity of a people may properly be regarded as 
 social evils. As the gates of modem commerce spring open to the 
 secluded peoples of the world, and the opportunities of business pros- 
 perity in the realms of belated civilization become more promising, this 
 commercial incapacity, unless it is remedied, will press more severely on 
 society, and its injury to the well-being of the people will become more 
 serious. A few specifications deserve mention under this general group. 
 
 I. Lack of Business Confidence.— Under the head of "Mutual 
 Suspicion," in a previous group,i facts were brought forward to illus- 
 trate the feeling of distrust which pervades non-Christian society. In 
 the present section we view this mutual suspicion in its relations to 
 business intercourse. All trade and bargaining in the Orient excite in 
 the foreigner and the native ahke a lively apprehension of trickery or 
 shrewd overreaching. The result is a prevalent lack of confidence in 
 commercial relations, and an abnormal development of the capacity 
 for artful and unscrupulous dealings. 
 
 1 Supra, pp. 226-229. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 'il^ 
 
 It is pleasant to note that there is valuable testimony from reliable 
 sources which credits many of the better class of Chinese merchants, 
 who are engaged in the larger business operations 
 of the empire, with probity and commercial integ- commercial distrust 
 rity.i They are placed in this respect in favorable '° China, 
 
 contrast with the official classes, whose dishonesty 
 and corruption are so notorious. This high standard, however, seems 
 to collapse when we step outside the business offices of a select circle 
 of well-known Chinese merchants in the treaty ports and in the promi- 
 nent centres of trade. The Chinese people as a whole, in their busi- 
 ness transactions, live on a low level of detestable duplicity.^ " Neither 
 buyer nor seller trusts the other, and each for that reason thinks that 
 his interests are subserved by putting his aflEairs for the time being out 
 of his own hands into those of a third person, who is strictly neutral 
 since his percentage will only be obtained on the completion of the 
 bargain. No transaction is considered as made at all until 'bargain 
 money ' has been paid. . . . The high rate of Chinese interest, ranging 
 from twenty-four to thirty-six or more per cent., is a proof of the lack 
 of mutual confidence. The larger part of this extortionate exaction 
 does not represent payment for the use of money, but insurance on 
 risk, which is very great." * The disastrous results to the economic 
 prosperity of China from this reign of suspicion in all business transac- 
 tions are manifest in the disabiUties which obstruct industrial life, and in 
 the general poverty which afflicts a country which might be exception- 
 ally prosperous if the currents of trade moved freely among its immense 
 population, and there was confidence which would justify financial in- 
 vestment and the development of its resources.* The Rev. Timothy 
 
 1 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," pp. 279, 280. 
 
 2 " No man trusts his neighbor. It is scarcely possible to imagine the evil 
 effects which this want of mutual confidence produces on society. Trust funds are 
 almost in every case misapplied, or rather appropriated for the use of the person to 
 whom they are confided. Officials are corrupt, and funds that are entrusted to them 
 for public uses are almost always embezzled. This is the rule in China. In most 
 cases I should say that not more than half of the funds which are appropriated for 
 any particular purpose ever reach their destination. The Chinese all know this. It 
 is the recognized state of society. They stand appalled at the magnitude of the evil, 
 but are utterly powerless and hopeless as to any remedy for its removal."— The late 
 Rev. J. A. Leyenberger (P. B. F. M. N.), Wei Hien, China. 
 
 " Low commercial standards is a feeble phrase to express the dishonesty and 
 general unreliability prevalent in the commercial life of China." — Rev. W. P. Chalfant 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Ichowfu, China. 
 
 3 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," pp. 254, 255. 
 
 * " The general fear of trickery, swindling, insecurity, lying, and injustice 
 
280 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Richard (E. B. M. S.), Shanghai, in a paper entitled "China's Appall- 
 ing Need of Reform," read before the Nanking Missionary Association 
 in November, 1893, deals in a thoroughgoing manner with the enor- 
 mous loss to the commercial interests of China due to her unwilling- 
 ness to reform her methods of trade and accept the higher standards 
 of commercial morality.^ 
 
 Statements of similar tenor may be made concerning the Japanese^ 
 among whom, as in the case of the Chinese, there are examples of integ- 
 rity and loyalty to trust in some of the larger com- 
 The moralities of trade mercial houses, with the notable extension of these 
 in Japan. characteristics to Japanese officials in the discharge 
 
 of patriotic duty, while, as in China, the same sin- 
 gular phenomenon of the collapse of these higher standards obtains in 
 the ordinary walks of trade.^ A decided improvement in the ways ot 
 Japanese traders within recent years has been noted by careful observ- 
 ers. Bad faith, which was notoriously the rule, is less universal than 
 formerly. The Japanese Trading Guilds are open to impeachment 
 because of their unscrupulous use of power and unfair commercial 
 methods.' " It is the united opinion of foreign merchants," writes an 
 American resident, "that the average Japanese have very defective 
 
 represses all commerce, and especially investment and cooperation. Perfidy and 
 mendacity necessitate the most wasteful expenditure of effort to check it, both in the 
 markets and in the Government. The unreliability of samples and virant of confi- 
 dence as to execution of orders in bulk is a direct obstacle to trade. Adulteration 
 tends to destroy business and profit, as, for instance, in the foreign tea trade, which is 
 being gradually lost partly on this account." — The Chinese Recorder, May, 1894, 
 article on "The Poverty of Shantung: Its Causes and Treatment," by the Rev. 
 A. G. Jones (E. B. M. S.), Ching Chow Fu, China. 
 
 1 Mr. Richard's article is published in full in The Chinese Recorder, November, 
 1894, and in " The China Mission Hand-Book," first issue, 1896, pp. 84-90. 
 
 2 " There are in Japan a few great merchants whose word may be trusted, and 
 whose obligations will be fulfilled with absolute honesty ; but a large part of the 
 buying and selling is still in the hands of mercantile freebooters, who will take an 
 advantage wherever it is possible to get one, in whose morality honesty has no 
 place, and who have not yet discovered the efficacy of that virtue simply as a matter 
 of policy. Their trade, conducted in a small way upon small means, is more of the 
 nature of a game, in which one person is the winner and the other the loser, than a 
 fair exchange, in which both parties obtain what they want. It is the mediaeval, 
 not the modern idea of business, that is still held among Japanese merchants. With 
 them, trade is a warfare between buyer and seller, in which every man must take all 
 possible advantage for himself, and it is the lookout of the other party if he is 
 cheated."— Bacon, "Japanese Girls and Women," pp. 263, 264. 
 
 ' Cf. article on " Commercial Morality in Japan," in The Nineteenth Century, 
 November, 1896, pp. 721-728. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 281 
 
 commercial standards. . . . This is the bane of all business transac- 
 tions. They cannot be said to be worse than some individual foreign- 
 ers in this respect, but as a rule their standards have been very low. 
 Happily there are signs of improvement, principally among those who 
 have been influenced by Christian principles." 
 
 In India, Turkey, and Persia the same lack of business confidence 
 is based upon the same minimum of commercial integrity which char- 
 acterizes the people.i In Persia "large partner- 
 ships or companies are not usual, because of lack Questionable standards 
 
 of confidence," and in all the minor intricacies of the world, 
 
 trade an amount of laborious and unrelenting sur- 
 veillance is necessary in order to prevent the most abominable fraud.^ 
 In Turkey every one expects to be cheated without mercy unless he 
 can prevent it by adequate safeguards. Where the lack of confidence 
 is so general, financial investments are regarded as attended with ex- 
 ceptional risks. This not only places the rate of interest at an exor- 
 bitant figure, but checks the spirit of business enterprise. In North 
 Africa, where Islam has moulded social character, the distrust in all 
 matters of business is so invincible that commercial transactions are 
 almost handicapped.^ 
 
 Throughout the South American Continent there is a grievous lack 
 of the higher standards of business integrity. "In Central Amer- 
 ica," writes a resident of Guatemala City, " commercial standards are 
 as low in every conceivable respect as they can get." "In Brazil," 
 virrites the Rev. J. J. Taylor, " there is no public confidence." A simi- 
 lar testimony is given by the Rev. J. M. AUis of Santiago, Chile, in a pub- 
 lished letter.* Statements so general in their scope, while they may be 
 
 1 Wilkins, " Modem Hinduism," p. 408. 
 
 2 Wilson, " Persian Life and Customs," pp. 281, 285. 
 
 5 " The Moor or the Berber in the ordinary relations of life seems not so unlike 
 other members of the race — fine and manly in his bearing, often industrious, and 
 personally intelligent enough to realize the value of honesty and the disadvantage of 
 the violation of those moral precepts upon which the Koran so strenuously insists. 
 He seems, hov^rever, incapable of any efficient social or commercial organization, 
 owing to his unconquerable distrust of his fellow-native. There are few, if any, 
 commercial partnerships among the Muslimtn of the Barbary States. Banks are not 
 only unknown, but actually unrealizable institutions. The money not immediately 
 required must be concealed, generally buried, and the secret is often not even com- 
 municated to the sons of the owner."— See article on " The Condition of Morocco," 
 in The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, October, 1896, p. 323. 
 
 * " I was recently talking with a business man, who was trying to raise capital 
 in England to put in a complete closed drainage system in the cities of Concepcion, 
 Talca, and Chilian. I asked him why he did not raise it here in Chile, His reply 
 
282 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 absolutely true, should be made and received with a certain discount 
 for individual exceptions. It is rarely the case that a people are alto- 
 gether bad in any single particular. The average may be higher or 
 lower, and even when it is unusually low there is still a certain percent- 
 age of exceptions to the rule, for which due allowance must be made. 
 
 2. Commercial Deceit and Fraud.— Integrity and honesty in- 
 spire trust, but where these are wanting as a basis of commercial 
 dealing no artiiicial expedient can create and per- 
 The Christian ideal of petuate that tone of buoyancy and assurance which 
 commercial integrity, ig the sign of business confidence. The moral stan- 
 dards of trade and its practical methods among 
 semi-civilized peoples are certainly not calculated to banish that subtle 
 distrust which seems to be the most prominent characteristic of business 
 intercourse pretty much everywhere in the non-Christian world. Dupli- 
 city, misrepresentation, fraud, and a constant effort to secure some 
 unfair advantage, are all too common in business transactions in every 
 land under the sun. It is in the non-Christian environment, however, 
 that the restraint-s of public opinion, the standards of honorable dealing, 
 and the obligations of honesty seem to be less effective than elsewhere. 
 There is no more reliable basis of business fidelity than regnant Chris- 
 tian principle. Absolute honesty is the ideal as well as the inflexible 
 demand of Christian ethics. All fraud and deceit are in defiance of 
 the rigorous requirements of that perfect law of just and righteous 
 dealing of man with man which Christianity seeks to enforce. Dishonest 
 business is recognized everywhere in theory as a curse to society. It 
 is especially condemned by the ethical code of Christianity as a serious 
 social offense. In a previous section, under the head of " Moral De- 
 linquencies " (p. 99), reference has been made to untruthfulness and 
 dishonesty as sadly prominent features of non-Christian society. In 
 this connection our attention is directed to the realm of business inter- 
 
 and explanation were significant. He said that the moneyed men had no confidence 
 in any management that might be chosen for such an enterprise. The funds would 
 be squandered and stolen, and bankruptcy would follow, and foreign capital would 
 buy out tli^ assets. This condition of things was because there was no moral or 
 religious principle in the country. The Government makes foreign loans because 
 the people have no confidence in the honesty of the ruling few, and have no power 
 to compel the Government to meet financial obligations unless by a revolution, and 
 then all is usually lost, and heavier burdens imposed. Foreign governments can 
 compel treaties by gunboats, but the citizen is helpless."— Letter in The New York 
 Observer, March 8, 1894. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 283 
 
 course as a sphere in which these characteristics become especially 
 noticeable. Making, therefore, every proper allowance for individual 
 exceptions, all the more commendable and beautiful because of their 
 rarity in an environment of temptation and lax example, we still seem 
 to have abundant reason to regard the commercial activities of Oriental 
 nations, especially in minor transactions, as shot through and through 
 with unscrupulous dealings. 
 
 The Chinese are expert smugglers, and much given to cunning fraud 
 in business. Over every financial venture hangs the grave shadow of 
 almost certain attempts at crooked administration. 
 Along every avenue of revenue is the lurking spec- Business trickery 
 tre of unfaithful service. Every shop door might '" China, 
 
 have its sign of warning against double-dealing and 
 deception. The weights and measures, as well as the currency, are all 
 tampered with for purposes of cheating. The common copper " cash " 
 of Chinese trade is specially subject to the manipulation and shortage 
 of financial tricksters.! The result of these dishonest dealings is in the 
 end to hamper trade and check its productiveness. The Chinese tea 
 trade has been steadily supplanted of late by that of Ceylon and India, 
 as has been shown by Mr. A. G. Stanton in a paper recently read be- 
 fore the London Society of Arts. In 1866 China supplied ninety-six 
 per cent, of the tea for Great Britain, and in 1 894 only twelve per cent. 
 The statement is made, with reference to this great falling off, that " it 
 is not the result so much of the growth of tea culture in India as of the 
 dishonest tricks of the Chinese trade." ^ The power of this temptation 
 to defraud is manifest even in the distribution of charity, so that the 
 
 1 " Bad money, in this province at least, is universal, that is, thin, illicit coins, <i 
 certain proportion of which is judiciously mixed on the string of cash, which may 
 contain five hundred or one thousand. The currency in general is bad. Bank-notes 
 (paper) have only a local circulation. The Government issues none, and the lump 
 silver may be adulterated, as it repeatedly is, with pewter, brass, etc. This silver 
 is changed for cash at so much per ounce, the ounce weight of no two localities being 
 alike. Hence losses of exchange between places a few miles apart. Multifarious 
 weights and measures — no standard for anything. Each place a law unto itself. 
 There is no government inspection of weights and measures." — Rev. Donald 
 MacGillivray (C. P. M.), Chu-Wang, China. 
 
 2 " Straw braid promised to be a good business in Shantung. The exports 
 brought large returns. But, as usual, deception and cupidity worked in. The 
 inside of the large bundles was poor work, or no work at all, only refuse. The 
 trade is hurt seriously. So of kerosene, it comes to us from Philadelphia and New 
 York in good condition, but at the ports it is mixed in some way with a kind of 
 cheap oil and water and sold to the natives who know no better."— Rev. John Mur- 
 ray (P. B. F. M. N.), Chinanfu, Shantung, China. 
 
284 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 dispensing of foreign relief funds cannot usually be safely committed 
 to native hands. ^ So inveterate is the tendency to palm oil the false 
 for the true that even the hated foreigner has been counterfeited with 
 a view to the advantage which it might bring.2 
 
 Japan has made remarkable progress of late years in the expansion 
 of her commercial interests. Her trade, both external and internal, is in- 
 creasing rapidly, and promises to enter into serious 
 The commercial ainuos- Competition with that of Westem nations. A grave 
 ities of the Japanese, danger, however, meets her at the very threshold of 
 her new industrial era. It is the temptation to dis- 
 honesty and fraud in business transactions.' Owing to the absence of 
 all protection in the case of foreign patents, trade-marks, or labels, the 
 
 1 " Poor people tell me that, in some places when rice is distributed, not only is 
 an inferior quality substituted for what ought to be given, but it is mixed with plaster 
 of Paris, which in small quantities makes rice look white, and also makes the eater 
 nauseated, thus preventing him from consuming too much. The result is a profit 
 to the officials in charge. Distribution of famine relief funds cannot be left even to 
 native so-called benevolent societies."— B. C. Atterbury, M.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), 
 Peking, China. 
 
 2 " There are in this part of China a number of ' counterfeit foreigners.' I was 
 myself taken to be one of that class, because of an ability to make myself understood 
 in Chinese. It seems that one or more enterprising Celestials have gone into the 
 work of dispensing medicines, after the manner of the American physician. Usually 
 two or three men go together. One of these dresses in foreign costume, and talks 
 a gibberish which is not understood by the natives, and so passes for a foreign lan- 
 guage. In imitation of American physicians all medicine is given away, but unlike 
 that fraternity the bogus representative of America is quite willing to receive contri- 
 butions of grain to feed the animal which helps convey him from village to village. 
 In consequence grain pours in upon him by the quantity. This is disposed of by a 
 confederate at the nearest fair, and then Ah Sin departs for ' fresh fields and pastures 
 new.'"— Rev. Franklin M. Chapin (A. B. C. F. M.), Lin Ching, China, in The Mis- 
 sionary Herald, July, 1893, p. 285. 
 
 Dr. S. S. McFarlane, of the Chi Chou station of the London Missionary Society, 
 in the same section of China, southwest of Tientsin, reports in July, 1896, a similar 
 incident : " For several years past the Mission has been troubled with a Chinaman 
 attired in foreign hat and shoes, travelling in a jinricksha, drawn by a donkey. This 
 Celestial goes about selling foreign sweets as infallible cures for every disease under 
 the sun. A large red notice hangs in front of his chariot, stating his honourable 
 connections with Ta Ying Kuo (England). He gives out at markets and fairs that 
 the Chi Qion Mission Hospital has employed him to sell foreign medicines at a sal- 
 ary amounting to ,ioj. iid. per month. His reputation is thus established, and his quack 
 remedies sell like wildfire. ... I may mention that our American neighbours, a 
 day's journey away, had a similar experience some time ago with another ' foreign ' 
 impostor, who was supposed to have been connected with their medical work and 
 in their honourable employ."— TX? Chronicle, July, 1896, p. 151. 
 
 * " One thing has been especially noticeable, and that is the low business Stan- 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 285 
 
 Japanese have already obtained an unenviable notoriety by the fraudu- 
 lent reproduction and use of foreign trade symbols and patent reserva- 
 tions. Their imitations of European products, which they palm off as 
 the genuine article from abroad, have already expanded into consider- 
 able variety. Mr. Hillier, British Consul-General in Korea, speaks of 
 "a wonderful reproduction of Pears' Soap, perfect in so far as box, 
 label, advertisements, and general appearance are concerned, but abso- 
 lutely worthless as soap ; and also a clever imitation of Colman's Mus- 
 tard. These spurious products are sold side by side in the same shop 
 with the genuine article, but at much lower price." If the Japanese fall 
 into the mistake of sacrificing quality to cheapness, and genuineness to 
 fraudulent imitation, their commercial prosperity is doomed to be at 
 least morally discredited. The energy, ingenuity, and skill of a nation 
 so gifted with the artistic faculty should not be betrayed into the service 
 of commercial dishonesty. Upon a basis of fair dealing, and the pro- 
 duction of sterling and genuine articles in all lines of trade, they could 
 easily enter into formidable rivalry with Western nations, and in the 
 end win a reputation for integrity and commercial honor which would 
 
 dards in commercial life. The result is that the merchant class is distrusted on 
 every hand, and business integrity is the exception and not the rule. A prominent 
 merchant of Yokohama told me recently that many of the storehouses are filled with 
 goods ordered by Japanese merchants, but which they refuse to take, because they 
 hope to buy the same at auction at a less price than was stipulated. It is also a 
 remarkable fact that the banks and large mercantile establishments do not entrust 
 their funds or their business to Japanese clerks and assistants, but employ China- 
 men instead. An illustration of the want of moral principle was seen in the appro- 
 priation by the officials to whom they were entrusted for distribution, of funds 
 donated for the relief of the sufferers by the earthquake."— Rev. Henry Loomis 
 (A. B. S.), Yokohama, Japan. 
 
 " And thus we find it the unanimous opinion of those in a position to judge, that 
 Japanese commercial morality is of a defective type when compared even with the 
 standard prevailing in China, where trade has never been stamped as degrading, or 
 with the customs of those nations which, amid all the trickery immemorially asso- 
 ciated with trade, have yet kept before them a certain standard of integrity in busi- 
 ness as in other walks of life. It is, indeed, a common belief, among those who 
 have investigated the conditions of trade in Japan, that commercial morality there 
 stands almost on the lowest plane possible to a civilised people, and that, with few 
 exceptions, even Japanese who prove estimable and high-minded in every other mat- 
 ter are not to be trusted when business transactions are in question, ,As a direct 
 outcome of the contempt and degradation visited upon trade in feudal days, all 
 classes now appear to regard commerce simply as a game of ' besting,' and the man 
 who fails to take advantage of his neighbour when opportunity serves is looked upon 
 rather as a fool than as one whose example should be praised and imitated." — Article 
 entitled " Commercial Morality in Japan," by Robert Young (Editor of The Kobe 
 Chronicle, Japan), in The Nineteenth Century, November, 1896, pp. 722, 723. 
 
286 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 place them in the front rank of the world's trade. At present, how- 
 ever, boycotts, enforced by the Trade Guilds to facilitate a dishonor- 
 able advantage, or cover the fact of repudiation and force a compro- 
 mise of a just obligation, are becoming all too frequent, and are not 
 condemned by public opinion. Shady commercial transactions are 
 condoned if they result in profit. The ethics of honesty cannot hold 
 their own where they conflict with the devices that succeed. A Japa- 
 nese merchant, in discussing with a foreigner a case of practical repu- 
 diation of a debt on the part of a Japanese merchant when goods 
 previously ordered arrived at the time of a falling market, remarked, 
 "But if he had taken delivery he would have lost money." This 
 seemed to settle the matter ; he was justified in refusing to receive the 
 goods and pay the price. The writer of the article in which this inci- 
 dent is related, Mr. Robert Young, Editor of The Kobe Chronicle^ 
 remarks : " That is the attitude which, with some few honourable ex- 
 ceptions, is almost invariably taken up by the Japanese merchant. 
 The profit on a transaction must be on his side. If he perceives that 
 he is likely to lose money, he will repudiate his bargains and his con- 
 tracts, and will permit all manner of evil things to be said of him rather 
 than fulfil his obligations. It is ' business ' to secure the greatest ad- 
 vantage for one's self at all costs to reputation, and this seems the only 
 touchstone which, in Japan, is applied to commercial matters. We see 
 in this the direct outcome of the contempt for trade and for all who 
 concerned themselves in barter, which was one of the features of feudal 
 days in Japan. Ethical considerations were held to be out of place in 
 the field of commerce, and as a result we find that men who would 
 not dream of doing their neighbours injustice or injury in the ordinary 
 affairs of life have no hesitation in overreaching them in a commercial 
 bargain. Trade is thus placed by immemorial custom outside the sphere 
 of morality, — it is something to which ethics do not apply any more 
 than they apply to the differential calculus, — and the result is what 
 might be expected." 
 
 In India deceit is regarded by the mass of the people as the guar- 
 antee of business success. " There is a story of a magistrate who planted 
 a bazaar with pipal-trees, but was waited upon by 
 Dearth of commercial ^ deputation of the shopkeepers, who beeeed him 
 
 integrity in India, •■ c t oo 
 
 Persia, and Turkey. to remove the trees, for they could not tell lies 
 under them, and business would come to a stand- 
 still." This request was based upon the common belief that gods re- 
 side hidden among the leaves of the pipal-tree, and inflict punishment 
 1 See The Nineteenth Century, November. 1896, p. 727. 
 
Euphrates College, Preparatory Department for Oirls. Primary School, No. i, Harpoot. 
 Euphrates College, Preparatory Department for Girls. Primary School, No. a, Harpoot. 
 
 American Educational Work in Turkey (a. b. c. f. m.) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 287 
 
 upon any one whom they hear telling lies. A common oath is made, 
 while crushing the leaves of the tree in the hand, by invoking the gods 
 to crush the maker of the oath as he crushes the leaf in his hand if he 
 is not teUing the truth.i It was formerly the custom for the Govern- 
 ment to superintend the management of Hindu temples, but this duty 
 was afterwards handed over to the Hindus themselves. Many com- 
 plaints have resulted as to the maladministration of temple revenues, 
 and the British Government has been invited to interfere again.^ 
 These remarks do not apply to all sections of the Hindu population, as 
 the influence of the British element, and the contact of the larger mer- 
 chants with European commerce, have brought new standards to the 
 more civilized and enhghtened sections of Indian traders. In Persia 
 and the Turkish Empire there is a deplorable dearth of commercial in- 
 tegrity. A resident of the Turkish Empire of long experience writes 
 as follows : " The ideal of young men here in going into business is to 
 start out without either principal or principle. Blarney and borrowed 
 money are the prime requisites. The economic value of honesty does 
 not come into consideration. To drive a sharp bargain and to escape 
 detection and punishment, to give little and get much, to make people 
 believe that you know all about a given line of business without taking 
 the trouble to learn, to ape the outside varnish of European wares and 
 of Levantine manners, to grow fat on other people's labors, and strut 
 in honors due to another, these are the standards of far too much that 
 is called business." Rev. S. G.Wilson, in his "Persian Life and Cus- 
 toms," gives many illustrations of infidelity to trust and unscrupulous- 
 ness in dealing.^ Through all Northern Africa trickery is implied in 
 commercial dealings.* That these tendencies are manifest among sav- 
 
 1 The Free Church of Scotland Monthly, January, 1895, p. 13. 
 
 2 " The Great Temples of India, Ceylon, and Burma," p. 85. 
 
 3 " Persian Life and Customs," pp. 86, 231, 285, 290. 
 
 * " The most conspicuous evils here are the low moral standards, both in com- 
 mercial and social dealings, and the substitution of religiousness for righteousness. 
 The Europeans here are mostly Maltese (perhaps the most unscrupulous and mor- 
 ally degraded of nominally Christian peoples, at least of Western Christians), but 
 even a Maltese is universally regarded by the natives as more truthful and generally 
 upright than themselves, and they put it down to his religion, corrupt as it is. They 
 hold that it is a sin to lie, to cheat, or to steal, but they have no practical notion of 
 what lying, cheating, and stealing are. Religion with them has little to do with 
 righteousness or unrighteousness. Business means roguery; a good liar or a clever 
 cheater is envied and respected, and his lying and cheating would not seriously de- 
 tract from his religious character. Yet they recognize the beauty of upright dealing 
 when they find it."— Mr. Henry G. Harding (N. A. M.), Tripoli, Barbary, North 
 Africa. 
 
288 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 age tribes and barbarous races still lower in civilization than those al- 
 ready mentioned is a fact which need not be dwelt upon. 
 
 3. Financial Irregularities.— There is no more searching test 
 to the average Oriental than the money ordeal. He may reveal most 
 
 engaging qualities in other respects, but we can 
 
 A crucial test to the never be sure of his moral stamina and fortitude 
 
 average Oriental. muij he has faced the temptation which comes 
 
 with such dazzling and bewitching power when 
 he feels the thrill of the gleaming coin in his sensitive palm. The 
 same fearful and fateful allurements to unfaithfulness seem to lurk in 
 all financial transactions, large or small, with exceptions which will be 
 referred to presently. When we consider the enormous variety, the 
 fathomless complexity, and the disorderly irregularities of the dealings 
 in money which occupy the Eastern world en masse every day of the 
 year, we realize that this subject brings us into immediate contact with 
 the busiest and most absorbing activities of the entire Orient. It ushers 
 us into the offices of the bankers and money-lenders ; we visit the ba- 
 zaars; we stand in the markets; we follow the footsteps of toil; we 
 tramp with the caravans ; we sail upon rivers and seas in every imagi- 
 nable craft ; we till the soil and ply every art and industry ; we are be- 
 wildered with the cunning ways of bargaining, and deafened with its 
 clamor; we enter every public building and call upon every public 
 functionary from Constantinople to Tokyo, and from Moukden to 
 Cape Town ; we watch the housewife and her servant just home from 
 the market ; we sit by the soldier in his camp, and hsten to the eccle- 
 siastic as he tries to probe some crookedness or adjust some hot dis- 
 pute which has been brought to him for settlement by the parties 
 whose mutual attempts at overreaching have brought both to bay. In 
 all this seething turmoil of the Oriental world the chief subject on every 
 side is the meum et tuum of cash. 
 
 Yet with all this tendency to crookedness there is a vein of tradi- 
 tional fideUty in the large banking houses of the Orient. The great 
 
 financial firms of every Eastern nation have ways 
 Some remarkable fea- of transacting business which seem to imply and 
 
 tures of Asiatic ' 
 
 banking. secure exceptional loyalty on the part of certain 
 
 trusted employees, as well as surprising integrity on 
 
 the part of those to whom they make advances. In some instances 
 
 this may be due to conscientious motives based upon moral principle, 
 
 but in many other cases the explanation will be found rather in the 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 289 
 
 power of custom or the claims of self-interest, and perhaps also in the 
 lack of nerve for great crimes, or the hopelessness of success therein. 
 If the idea can be once established that in certain situations there is no 
 precedent for infidelity, that it is contrary to all tradition, and involves 
 swift ruin to the participant and his entire circle of friends, the mystic 
 spell of this status over some Oriental minds becomes wonderful. Every 
 other sin may be possible, and even unfaithfulness to obligations in every 
 other direction may be conceivable, but at the post of duty in the 
 banking house of his master, fidelity is the unwritten and unchangeable 
 law of life to the end. Then, again, self-interest in the case of those 
 who receive advances, and need to be financed year after year in order 
 to survive, is a powerful stimulus to their honesty. A single lapse, and 
 all is over. Every door of hope is closed to them, and the prospects 
 of a Ufetime, built in thousands of instances on the expectation of loans 
 when they are needed, are blasted. Once more, the charmed existence 
 of these great Asiatic banking houses seems to awe the criminal instincts 
 of those who might otherwise be ready for plunder. There is not the 
 courage and daring necessary to conceive and execute colossal crimes 
 against them. They have secret ways, also, of securing their profit 
 and safeguarding their wealth, which have worked as well for centuries 
 as the most elaborate modem biu:glar-proof devices.^ 
 
 We must provide a margin, then, for exceptional, even in some in- 
 stances extraordinary, faithfulness in individual cases, or in certain en- 
 vironments in the East ; but, with this allowance, it may be said without 
 hesitation that, as a rule, the financial dealings of Oriental peoples are 
 a mass of crooked and tangled unscrupulousness. 
 
 One of the most prominent figures in Eastern finance is the money- 
 lender. He is everywhere, and his function is important, and yet there 
 is hardly any member of society who needs regu- 
 lating and supervising more than he. His ruinous a prominent figure in 
 exactions are terrible, and press with dire and cruel Eastern finance, 
 weight upon his helpless victims, who are mostly 
 from the trading or peasant classes, although every rank in life, from 
 the highest to the lowest, sends its. representatives to his door. His 
 rates of interest are rarely lower than twelve per cent., and are fre- 
 quently as high as fifty or seventy per cent. Perhaps they will average 
 from twenty to thirty per cent, throughout Asia.2 The burden is para- 
 
 1 Cf. an article on " Asiatic Bankers," in The Spectator (London), October 31, 
 1896, in which some of the remarkable features of this subject are most intelligently 
 considered. 
 
 S " Almost all [in India] are in debt, and are so hampered by this burden that 
 
290 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 lyzing. Yet from the days when Old Testament lawgivers prohibited 
 usury, even in its strict biblical sense of any interest whatever, until 
 now, the usurious loans of the money-lending oppressor have been the 
 bane and sorrow of the needy Oriental.^ Debt is therefore a social 
 and economic burden of crushing weight almost everywhere in the 
 East.2 In some countries the grasp of the usurer lays hold upon other 
 things than money— it may be houses, lands, or children, until all is 
 gone.** 
 
 In India the money-lender is a busy man, and is found well distrib- 
 uted all through the country, although the majority in North India 
 come from Marwar, a Rajputana State, and are therefore known as 
 
 it is hardly possible for them to improve their circumstances. The most moderate 
 rate of interest is twelve per cent, per annum, but for small sums one anna to the 
 rupee per month, that is, seventy-five per cent, per annum, or even more, is com- 
 monly charged. Frequently rich money-lenders make claims where there is no real 
 indebtedness, and by the production of forged documents succeed in enforcing these 
 claims. I remember a case in which a village magistrate forged a document for 
 ninety rupees against a poor laborer, simply because the man refused to join his 
 faction, and actually obtained a decree for the amount. Often poor people are in- 
 duced to assent to a document under an utterly false impression. The heads of a 
 Pariah community, for example, in a village in one district were induced to put their 
 marks to a deed of sale for the land belonging to the community, through those who 
 drew up the deed reading it as if it were simply a lease for ten years." — Rev. W. 
 Howard Campbell (L. M. S.), Cuddapah, Madras, India. 
 
 " The regular rate of interest is twenty-four per cent, per annum, and is so 
 recognized by law. How this produces debt is evident. There are no savings- 
 banks. The facility with which anything may be pawned also tends to poverty. 
 The pawnshops are the wealthiest concerns of every city." — Rev. Donald MacGil- 
 livray (C. P. M.), Chu-Wang, China. 
 
 1 Cf. The Spectator (London), February 15, 1896, article on " Money-lending in 
 the East." 
 
 2 " Debt is a great evil in India. A very large proportion of the community 
 never expect to get out of debt. Debt is oftenest contracted by foolish expenditure 
 required by custom on occasions such as marriages, births, and burials. It is pretty 
 often to the interest of the money-lender that the principal should not be repaid. It 
 is not unusual to charge interest at the rate of seventy-five per cent, per annum, 
 payment monthly in advance, the bare amount of interest constituting by no means 
 the sole profit of the lender. One of the most serious problems of Government is 
 
 how to rid the agricultural community from the clutches of the usurer." Rev. 
 
 Robert Morrison (P. B. F. M. N.), Lahore, India. 
 
 s " The rate of interest is always very high. Often the note is written thus : ' If 
 not paid when due, one shall become two.' That is, the principal is to be doubled 
 if the note is not paid at maturity. The creditor may then take the whole family as 
 his slaves, or he may take one or two of the children to ' sit on the interest,' as they 
 term it. That is, the services of the children will prevent the accumulation of interest, 
 but will not reduce the principal. Slavery for debt is exceedingly common, and 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OP THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 291 
 
 Marwaris. Other names, as, for instance, sowkar, in the Deccan, pre- 
 vail in other sections of India. These money-brokers drive a thriving 
 and ruinous business. It is a characteristic weakness of Hindus to fall 
 into their trap. Mr. Malabari, in his " Gujarat and the Gujaratis," has 
 pointed out the insidious wiles of the Marwari, and the fatal ascendancy 
 he soon secures.^ Books upon India give detailed accounts of the 
 inveterate habit of borrowing, and the methods long in use by money- 
 lenders to get the peasantry and small traders into their power, and of 
 the inevitable catastrophe which follows.^ " One of the greatest curses 
 in India," writes Dr. Robert Stewart, " is the Hindu broker." ' The 
 
 escape from it, when once entrapped, is very uncommon." — J. W. McKean, M.D. 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Chieng Mai, Laos. 
 
 " The King promulgated a law a few years ago providing for the gradual aboli- 
 tion of debt-slavery. It is beginning to take some effect." — Rev. W. G. McClure 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Petchaburee, Siam. 
 
 1 " The Marwari allows credit to his customers till it has reached, say, a rupee ; 
 then begins the interest at two annas a month ; then it becomes a book debt ; then is 
 required a security — an old ring, a few cooking utensils, some wearing apparel, etc. 
 These are lodged with the Marwari till the lodger has drawn upon the shop for 
 about half their value. Fresh security is now required if fresh supplies of rotten 
 grain, adulterated oil, wet fuel, etc., are applied for. He charges heavy interest 
 for the credit money, and he turns to account the security lodged with him. He 
 •ends the ring, the clothes, the utensils, or the furniture to others, and charges for 
 the use. If those who have lodged the articles with him object to their being used, 
 why, they must close their account with him! 
 
 " The Marwari will lend and sell on credit to the last pie compatible with safety. 
 Infinite is his power of lending, so is his power of recovering. The moment the 
 Marwari finds difficulty in repayment, he sets about squeezing the last drop out of 
 the unhappy wretch. He removes from his house everything worth removing. He 
 does not scruple to put his victims to the vilest uses, so he can recover what he 
 thinks to be his due. When all fails to satisfy the relentless fiend, he resorts to the 
 Small Cause Court. Those who know what a summary suit is need not be told that 
 the Marwari has the power to sell by auction everything the debtor may possess. 
 He often buys up everything himself. 
 
 "The Marwari feeds upon the poorer classes of Hindus, but clerks and others 
 likewise fall victims to his rapacity. His policy is the policy of the 'long rope.' 
 He lends and lends till the man is completely in his power, and is virtually his slave 
 for life."— Malabari, " Gujarat and the Gujaratis," quoted in " The Principal Nations 
 of India," p. 8i. 
 
 2 Cf. Raghavaiyangar, " Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last 
 Forty Years," Appendices, p. cclxxv. ; Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 409, 
 410. See also " Debt and the Right Use of Money," a timely little pamphlet in the 
 series of Papers on Social Reform, published by the Christian Literature Society, 
 Madras. The beguiling allurements and sinuosities of Indian debt-traps are briefly 
 and instructively treated in this useful tract written especially for Indian readers. 
 
 3 " Life and Work in India," p. 127. 
 
292 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 conditions, however, are greatly improved by financial reforms intro- 
 duced by the British Government.^ 
 
 In China currency is the sport of tricksters. Few are inclined to 
 part with coin without surreptitiously extracting something of its value ; 
 all are reluctant to receive it without carefully test- 
 Currency problems ing its integrity. The rate of interest is uniformly 
 in China. high, ranging from twenty-four to thirty-six per 
 
 cent., and sometimes even more.^ The mysteries 
 and uncertainties of Chinese finances are discussed by Mr. R. S. Gun- 
 dry, in " China, Present and Past," in a special chapter on " Currency " 
 (pp. 141-1 58). China is still dependent in her treaty ports and vicinity 
 upon the Mexican, Japanese, and to some extent the British dollar is- 
 sued at Hong Kong, for her current medium and her accepted standard. 
 In the interior the small "cash " and the awkward silver "shoes "—blocks 
 
 1 " The extension of the security of property to all parts of the country, the 
 adoption of a uniform currency, the introduction of the money-order system and of 
 currency notes and State banks, and the creation of a public stock in which money 
 can be invested with perfect security, have rendered it now impossible for the money- 
 lending classes to make the enormous gains which they did in former times. . . . 
 There can be no doubt, however, that, with the increase of trade and the growth of 
 a money economy, money-lending classes have increased in large numbers and 
 spread all through the country instead of being confined to the towns. According 
 to the returns of income tax for the year 1890-91, there were in this [Madras] 
 Presidency 14,621 money-lenders with incomes exceeding Rs 500 per annum. 
 There is 110 means of forming an estimate of petty money-lenders with less income 
 than Rs 500." — Raghavaiyangar, " Progress of the Madras Presidency During the 
 Last Forty Years," p. 160. 
 
 At the Poona Social Conference held in December, 1895, the president, Dr. 
 Bhandarkar, in his inaugural address referred to the money-lender and his virtual 
 war upon Indian society as follows : 
 
 " And I will make bold to assert that the chronic poverty of the agricultural 
 classes and the depredations of the proverbial sowkar, or money-lender, are a great 
 social evil. The Government has been endeavoring to do a good deal by means of 
 mere special legislation ; but that does not seem to have remedied the evil, and the 
 money-lender continues to charge interest from eighteen to twenty-five per cent, on 
 loans raised on the security of lands. This is a political as well as a social question. 
 The Government has been on several occasions urged to establish agricultural banks. 
 ... An ordinary bank with agencies at the district towns, and sub-agencies for 
 circles with a radius of about ten miles, will, I think, fully answer the purpose. 
 Money should be lent on the security of land at an interest of from nine to twelve 
 per cent., payable about the same time as the land revenue. Sympathetic, though 
 firm, treatment should be accorded to the peasants, and fhe agents employed should 
 not be unscrupulous men exacting perquisites for themselves." See for full text of 
 the Address, which deals with many aspects of social reform in Iniia, Delhi Mission 
 News, July, 1896. 
 
 « Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 255. 
 
Euphrates College, Harpoot. Girls' Seminary, burned by Turks and Kurds, 1895. 
 Euphrates College, Harpoot, Turkey. Group of pupils In the Girls' Department, 1890- 
 
 American Educational Work in Turkey (a.b. c.f. m.) 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 293 
 
 valued at about forty dollars— are the common currency. The Celes- 
 tial Empire awaits some system of terrestrial coinage which will be of 
 practical service and guaranteed stability for advantageous commercial 
 use. Just at present financial matters are in a confused and unstable 
 state, and foreign investments, as well as native ventures, are attended 
 with considerable risk, all of which is depressing to China and retards 
 her commercial progress.^ 
 
 It is sufficient to say, in conclusion, that systematic and regulative 
 measures are desperately needed in the sphere of finance and banking 
 everywhere throughout the less civilized sections of the world. The 
 assurance now felt is almost entirely due to the fact that great banking 
 establishments, under foreign control, backed by foreign capital, con- 
 ducted by orderly methods, having the confidence of the whole com- 
 mercial East, and with a bed-rock of moral stability under them, control 
 the finances of the Orient. 
 
 4. Primitive Industrial Appliances.— Financial uncertainties 
 are in league with clumsy tools and antiquated methods in trades, 
 industries, and agricultiu:al labors to retard the de- 
 velopment of the East. It is social heresy of the ''''"' fite'^ness of indus- 
 
 ^ , . . . . . , trial methods in the 
 
 most pronounced kind m many sections of the East. 
 
 Orient to forsake the time-honored ways of anti- 
 quity for new and improved methods, however advantageous they may 
 be. Every one is afraid to. begin, lest he offend public sentiment or 
 become the butt of ridicule, or possibly find himself incompetent to 
 succeed in any other way than that of his fathers for generations past. 
 The gradual development of better facilities has been hitherto checked 
 as if by proscription ; the natural transformation of ways and means 
 from the old and cumbersome to the new and facile has been interdicted 
 as if it were high treason to society. The result of this wholesale con- 
 demnation of better methods, simply because they are different from 
 the old, is a check to the business prosperity and the social advance- 
 ment of the East, while it is a serious drawback to progress. 
 
 In China the old, awkward methods of farming with rude imple- 
 ments are still in vogue, and the modem facilities of Western nations 
 are under a ban of contempt. Harvesting and threshing are done in 
 primitive and laborious fashion.^ The Koreans are, if possible, even 
 
 1 The subject has been fully and ably treated by Vissering, " Chinese Currency '' 
 (Leyden, Brill, 1877). 
 
 * " Accustomed as we are to large farms and extended systems of agriculture, 
 
294 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 behind the Chinese, while elsewhere in Asia, with the exception of India 
 and Japan, the old, worn-out appliances of patriarchal agriculture sum 
 up the resources of the people pretty much everywhere. 
 
 Many Asiatic countries, and China not the least among them, are en- 
 dowed with as yet unexplored resources. Mineral wealth in apparently 
 
 exhaustless abundance and variety, untouched 
 
 The industrial capabiii- natural sources of power and production, are 
 
 ties of the Orient. ^gpt jn wasteful idleness, while the people to work 
 
 them are swarming on every side, with the finest gifts 
 of patient industry, awaiting that inspiring and guiding leadership which 
 will direct them in paths of usefulness. Asiatics are by no means de- 
 ficient in capacity ; they are able to do an immense share of the world's 
 work with a skill and deftness which, if they could be brought into touch 
 with the appliances of modem times, would astonish and perhaps greatly 
 disconcert the Western nations, who seem to look upon their trade and 
 commerce as beyond competition so far as Eastern rivalry is concerned. 
 Japan has already sent a nervous thrill through the commercial circles 
 of the West, and other peoples of the East will before long add their 
 increment of force to the shock. An illustration of the prompt advan- 
 tage of the adoption of modern improvements is at hand. China since 
 the days of the Roman emperors, as has been shown by Mr. Gundry,i 
 has been noted for her trade in silk, but, adhering to her primitive 
 methods, her output was limited, and other nations with improved 
 machinery absorbed a large share of the industry. Now her people 
 are just beginning to adopt the facilities for machine-reeling, and China 
 is coming into rapid competition with her rivals.^ So in the case of 
 the sugar-cane industry in Central China ; the native mills are so im- 
 
 Chinese farms appear to partake more of the nature of market-gardens than of agri- 
 cultural holdings. The implements used are primitive in the extreme, and are such 
 as, we learn from the sculptures, were used in ancient Assyria. Two only may be 
 said to be generally used, the plough and the hoe. The first of these is little more 
 than a spade fastened to a single handle by bamboo bands. As a rule, it is drawn 
 by a buffalo or buffaloes, and some travellers even claim to have seen women har- 
 nessed in the same yoke with these beasts of burden. From the shape of the share 
 the Chinese plough does little more than disturb the surface of the soil, and rarely 
 penetrates more than four or five inches. . . . The spade is seldom used, and the 
 hoe is made to take its place. Rakes and bill-hooks complete the farmer's stock in 
 trade. The bamboo, which is made to serve almost every purpose, forms the mate- 
 rial of each part of the rake ; while the bill-hook has a treble debt to pay, serving as 
 a pruning-knife in the spring, a scythe in the summer, and a sickle when the grain 
 is ripe to harvest."— Douglas, " Society in China," p. 126. 
 
 1 "China, Present and Past," p. 122. 
 
 2 " In a recent report from the British Legation in Peking on Chinese commercial 
 topics, silk is despribed as the mos.t ph^racterjsfic of all Chinese produqtS; ajid that 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE JSTON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 295 
 
 perfect in their processes that an enormous waste of twenty per cent, 
 of the best juice is left in the cane and subsequently burned up. 
 Modern machinery would do away with this loss, and in a recent letter 
 from the Rev. W. N. Brewster, of Hinghua City, Fuhkien, he intimates 
 his intention to make the effort to introduce modern sugar-cane mills 
 in that section. Yet, with all the facilities for competition which 
 Western manufacturers possess, native fabrics still hold their own in 
 many parts of Asia. The products of the Indian looms are not so 
 cheap as those of Manchester, but they are more durable, and Sir W. 
 Hunter estimates that about three fifths of the cotton cloth used in 
 India is woven there.i 
 
 The facilities of communication form another pressing problem 
 throughout Asia, except where Western capital and skill have " made 
 a highway " for transportation and intercourse. 
 The railway is thrusting itself into China ; there is '^*'* demand for im- 
 
 . .^,. ,T proved facilities of 
 
 already a magnificent system in India ; and Japan transportation, 
 is rapidly developing an extensive plant. Siam is 
 as yet untouched, except in the vicinity of its capital,^ although various 
 projects have been announced, and preliminary explorations have been 
 
 which gave the country its name in the West in ancient times. The export is grow- 
 ing rapidly, especially in certain varieties, such as raw steam filature, in which it was 
 half a million pounds in 1894, and three and one half millions last year. The in- 
 creased export of silk is especially marked in Shanghai, where the total value last 
 year was estimated at nearly six millions sterling. Shanghai has now twenty-five silk 
 filatures ; new factories are about to be erected in Su-chau and Hang-chau, which 
 are close to the silk-producing districts, and it is believed that before long all the 
 Chinese silk going abroad will be filature reeled before leaving the country. This 
 will involve a large increase in the silk production, in consequence of the abandon- 
 ment of the native method of reeling from fresh cocoons. Hitherto the silk pro- 
 ducers have never reared more worms than could be dealt with in the ten days that 
 elapse between the completion of the cocoon by the worm and the appearance of the 
 moth, as the perfect insects eat their way through the cocoons to the light, and thus 
 destroy them. But with steam filatures the cocoon is baked, or kiln-dried, so that 
 the chrysalis is killed, and the spinning of the silk can take place at any time. The 
 increased production thereby secured in China will probably seriously influence the 
 production in France and Italy. Sir "Robert Hart has been instrumental in intro- 
 ducing to China the Pasteur system of treating diseased silkworms, much to the 
 advantage of the cultivators. Canton comes next in importance as a silk port to 
 Shanghai, and is followed by Chifu, though the yellow silk produced in the districts 
 for which the last is the outlet is not in demand in Europe, for the winding of it is 
 not such as to please European manufacturers. Silk goods manufactured in China 
 are also more largely exported."— 7%^ Mail (London Times), November 6, 1896. 
 
 1 Hunter, "The Indian Empire," p. 702. The whole chapter on "Arts and 
 Manufactures " (pp. 700-721) is an instructive commentary on the industrial capacity 
 and manual skill of native workmen. 
 
 8 " The solution of the most pressing problems of Siam's future is, of course, 
 
296 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 made with a view to an entrance from Burma on the north. Through- 
 out much of interior Asia the difficulties of transportation and inter- 
 communication are an insurmountable barrier to development.^ With 
 the progress of the new era of national aspiration and social advance 
 which is opening in all parts of the world, we shall witness the accep- 
 tance of industrial facilities and their skilful use, when sufficient experi- 
 ence and training have made them serviceable. In the meantime 
 industries lag under the weight of antiquated methods. 
 
 VII.— THE RELIGIOUS GROUP 
 
 (Evils which deprive society of the moral benefits of a pure religions faith 
 and practice) 
 
 The universality of the religious instinct in mankind is now no longer 
 an open question among the most eminent students of anthropology and 
 ethnology. Dr. F. B. Jevons, in his recent ad- 
 The universality of mirable volume, defends the statement that there 
 religion. never was a time in the history of man when he was 
 
 without religion. He shows that, although some 
 writers have endeavored to demonstrate its falsity by producing savage 
 peoples alleged to have no religious ideas whatever, it is nevertheless, 
 as every anthropologist knows, a discussion which "has now gone to 
 the limbo of dead controversies." He confirms this judgment by show- 
 means of communication. So long as this (Jne and only remedy is untouched by any 
 efforts except the present perfunctory and fictitious designs of the Royal Railway 
 Department, so long the vast possibilities of Siamese development must remain un- 
 realized. Take about half an hour's walk from the Grand Palace in Bangkok in any 
 direction you please, and you find you can go no further. Not, however, because 
 the roads are atrocious, as in Korea, or impassable, as in China. They simply do 
 not exist— there are none. Even the great waterway, the one hope and stay of the 
 struggling timber-dealers and despairing rice-traders, is allowed to remain in a more 
 or less unnavigable condition for half of every year. The trade of Siam, the devel- 
 opment of Siam, the resources of Siam, have become what they are in the teeth of 
 almost insuperable obstacles. In this complete absence of roads, one can of course 
 only get out of Bangkok and see anything of the country by boat -travelling either on 
 the canals or the main river ; and afterwards start from certain recognized centres, 
 on ponies, or more often on foot, with bullocks or coolies for baggage, along the 
 rough trails and jungle paths, created simply by the persistent tramping of feet, 
 without artificial construction of any sort, which still do duty for ' Internal Com- 
 munications.' "—Norman, " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East,'' p. 426. 
 
 1 " In South China we have nothing but the sedan-chair or the pony's back to give 
 any variety from walking. Tens of thousands of men in South China are little more 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 297 
 
 ing that " writers approaching the subject from such different points of 
 view as Professor Tylor, Max Miiller, Ratzel, De Quatrefages, Tiele, 
 Waitz, Gerland, and Peschel, all agree that there are no races, however 
 rude, which are destitute of all idea of religion." i This universahty of 
 reUgion has been identified with the social life of primitive peoples quite 
 as much, if not more, than with their individual life. Early religion, 
 in fact, entered into the life of the clan or tribe quite as definitely as 
 into that of the family or individual. As Dr. Jevons writes, rehgion 
 from the beginning " was not an affair which concerned the individual 
 only, but one which demanded the cooperation of the whole commu- 
 nity ; and a religious community was the earliest form of society." ^ 
 Thus, for good or for ill, the social evolution of humanity has been to 
 a most impressive degree influenced by religious beliefs and practices, 
 and this is especially true to-day in lands where the social and religious 
 life of the people are largely identical. Social degeneracy has been 
 hastened by the defects of religion, and the advance to better conditions 
 has been stimulated by its superior qualities. The great variety of 
 rehgious beliefs and practices has occasioned widely divergent tend- 
 encies in social life. The difficulty has been not so much the absence 
 of religion as its imperfections and perversions. The history of man- 
 kind has not been irreligious, but it has been perversely erroneous and 
 wayward in its religious tendencies. 
 
 The explanation of the religious wanderings and defections of man- 
 kind is not a matter which it is necessary to discuss here. The theory 
 which biblical history clearly indicates is intelligible 
 and consistent. The fact of primitive monotheism xhe fact of a general 
 is sufficiently clear as a doctrine of Scripture, and religious defection, 
 there seems to be no good reason, based upon 
 either philosophical or scientific data, to doubt it ; but it is equally plain 
 that early monotheism failed to hold the race in allegiance. Mankind 
 deserted God the Creator and turned to the creature. Man forsook the 
 law of his Maker, turned to vain and superstitious imaginations con- 
 cerning the supernatural, and through various gradations of totemism, 
 
 than beasts of burden. Rice and sugar and tobacco and tea are brought for miles 
 and miles on the shoulders of men, as the only means of conveyance, until the 
 produce reaches some river, and is thence transported by boat."— Rev. J. G. Fagg 
 (Ref. C. A.), Amoy, China. 
 
 1 Jevons, " An Introduction to the History of Religion," p. 7. 
 
 Professor Ratzel, in his " History of Mankind," remarks : " Ethnography knows 
 no race devoid of religion, but only differences in the degree to which religious ideas 
 are developed " (vol. i., p. 40). 
 
 2 Page loi. 
 
298 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 fetichism, animism, idolatry, and the prostitution of religion to the ser- 
 vice of sensuous and destructive desires, lost spiritual contact with his 
 God and fell into deep and general apostasy. This collapse would no 
 doubt have been universal and final had not God laid hold of a remnant 
 of humanity, and, by spiritual touch and strenuous disciphne, preserved 
 them from the prevalent defection, and guided them by many and varied 
 interventions into the ways of allegiance and obedience. Judaism, how- 
 ever, as revealed in Hebrew history, was not free from faults and gross 
 scandals, culminating in an almost total eclipse ; although in its deep 
 and wonderful religious development, and as a preparatory training for 
 the spiritual doctrine and the larger life of Christianity, it bears every 
 evidence of its divine mission. In the case of other peoples, however, 
 the spiritual defection has been a dark and overshadowing calamity, 
 which has culminated in the long tragedy of man's spiritual history. 
 The loss of the true God out of the consciousness of the race is a suffi- 
 cient and, under all the circumstances, a perfectly natural explanation 
 of its religious bUndness, perversity, and degeneracy. 
 
 In the deep and awful excesses of man's sinful career there have 
 appeared from time to time men of nobler and higher, but, alas! most 
 
 defective vision, whose natures have revolted 
 
 The genesis of ethnic from the spiritual and sensual degradation of their 
 
 faiths. environment, and some of whom have sought, upon 
 
 the basis of philosophy or ethics or devout aspira- 
 tion or partial rehabiUtation of the remnants of truth still present in re- 
 hgious tradition, to reform the spiritual life of mankind. Such, we may 
 believe, has been in the main the spirit of the purer heathen sages, and 
 the true genesis of the great ethnic faiths of the Orient, which in most 
 instances originated in a revolt from degeneracy, a break with pagan 
 despair, and a struggle to estabhsh a truer and nobler religious cult. 
 These religious revivals, some far purer than others in their original 
 conception, have themselves in time suffered collapse. The resulting 
 cult has become corrupted, and in certain instances defiled by gross 
 lapses into idolatry or compromising alliances with the flesh. There is 
 a pathos in their aspiration, a nobihty in their revolt, but, alas! a sorrow- 
 ful incapacity in their vital spiritual forces to cope with the sinful per- 
 versity of the human heart. They have had their partial and imperfect 
 messages to mankind and have helped humanity in a measure; they 
 have brought fitful gleams of light and disproportionate religious in- 
 struction ; but they have failed at vital points, and have advocated fatal 
 compromises and concessions, which have weakened, if not in some in- 
 stances wholly destroyed, their capacity to lift humanity to higher levels. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAlUr WORLD 299 
 
 Mankind has been in some respects indebted to them, but in other re- 
 spects they have proved disappointing and deceptive. The world of 
 to-day, with its manifold miseries and iniquities, is probably as good a 
 world as the ethnic faiths could be expected to produce. 
 
 In considering, therefore, the social benefits which may be hoped 
 for through religious influence, it will be seen that everything depends 
 upon the character of the religion itself. If it is 
 not true in doctrine and pure in practice, if it is The social value of 
 not gifted with spiritual vitality sufficiently per- *'"« religion, 
 
 suasive and vivifying to control the moral nature, 
 if it does not, in fact, lead men to the living and true God and produce 
 in them a transformation of character after the likeness of the Eternal 
 Goodness, then its powerlessness dooms it to failure. The absolute essen- 
 tial of a true and efficient religion is that it secures reconciliation between 
 God and man, and produces in the latter a worthy moral character. In 
 other words, it must put sinful man into right relations with God, and 
 so renew and purify his nature by the processes of training and soul cul- 
 ture that he is spiritually made over. Whatever else it does, if it does 
 not do this in the case of its individual believers and followers, it will 
 inevitably fail to reconstruct society after the pattern of divine right- 
 eousness- There is no basis for purified social ethics except a trans- 
 formed individual character.^ If, however, the religious life of a 
 community is true to the higher standards of righteousness, a high and 
 noble religious experience will prove an immense and inspiring force in 
 the moulding of social development. In a word, true religion is a 
 fountain of social and national ideals, and is the source of higher ethical 
 impulses in the State. It becomes also a conservative restraint in times 
 of passion and excitement ; it creates a respect for law, and quickens 
 the reverence for justice ; it rebukes not only individual, but social and 
 even national selfishness; it stimulates the aspiration after liberty; it 
 checks the spirit of revenge and retaliation ; it quickens the desire for 
 peace and conciliation ; it identifies true manhood with gentleness, true 
 courage with forbearance, true manly and womanly character with 
 virtue. The constructive forces of society are, therefore, moral; the 
 genesis of all true and high enthusiasm for goodness is religious. It 
 is only through religious faith that the influence of invisible realities is 
 brought to bear in an environment of visible things. Faith in immor- 
 tality, that mighty secret of the soul, comes to us through rehgion. 
 Only thus can men live here in this world " under the power of the 
 
 1 Cf. Hillis, " A Man's Value to Society," especially chap, i,, " Elements of 
 Worth in the IndividuaL" 
 
300 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 world to come." Supematuralism, to be sure, may be an immense 
 power for evil if it degenerates into superstition, but, on the other hand, 
 it may be a magnificent stimulus for good. With God as its centre, 
 and with the illuminating instruction of revelation poured upon it, it 
 becomes wonderfully fruitful in motive power towards individual and 
 social perfection. We turn now to a few specifications illustrative of 
 the unhappy results upon society of a religious life which is destitute of 
 the purifying and vitalizing forces of Christianity. 
 
 I. Degrading Conceptions of the Nature and Require- 
 ments OF Religion.— We have said that the influence of a religion 
 upon the individual and social life depends, not 
 The true tests of social Only upon the power of its ascendancy over the 
 value in a religion. conscience, but upon the character of the object 
 it presents for worship and the subject-matter of its 
 teaching. If it is conceded that there is but one living and true God, 
 who is alone worthy of religious adoration and faith, and whose moral 
 precepts provide the only safe and helpful guidance to the soul, it fol- 
 lows that if in place of this supreme and holy personal Creator as the 
 spiritual centre of religious faith we have impersonal abstractions, per- 
 haps vaguely personified, or pantheistic theories, or imaginary pantheons, 
 or an environment of demons or fetiches, we have lost touch with a 
 supreme, divine Personality. If we have nature-worship, idolatry, or 
 some gross form of sensualism ; if we have mere philosophical dogma, 
 or an ethical code, however elaborate and severe, or pagan mysticism, 
 however ecstatic, or rationalism, however pretentious and dogmatic, or 
 mere humanitarianism, as the sum of religious duty, we are bound to 
 have a moral impression which is worth to society just what the spirit- 
 ual dignity of its central truth amounts to, and nothing more. We 
 cannot vitalize the moral nature through a religious system which is 
 itself without living spiritual forces. The subject-matter of religious 
 teaching is also a test of its social value. If in place of the sweet, pure 
 morality and the spiritual discipline of Christianity we have crude phil- 
 osophical formulae, or error posing as truth, or lax ethical principles, or 
 compromises with the flesh, or external formalism, or sacerdotal pre- 
 tensions, the result is depressing just in proportion to the degeneracy of 
 the religious standards upheld and practised. Thus, if a reUgion pre- 
 sents ideals of character in its gods which are degrading ; if its worship 
 is compromising to true manhood and womanhood ; if the creature is 
 exalted to a dignity which belongs only to the Creator ; if religion is 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 301 
 
 made a matter of forms and ceremonies, of feasts, fasts, festivals, and 
 pilgrimages ; if it fosters asceticism, mendicancy, monasticism, self-tor- 
 ture, or vain display ; if it nourishes fanatical pride and intolerance, or 
 sanctions persecution, cruelty, and moral defection ; if it gives scope to 
 sins of the flesh and severs morality from piety ; if it regards a religious 
 profession as valuable simply in proportion to the material advantages 
 and immunities it brings ; if it fails to regard humanitarian service as a 
 part of religious duty, or in other ways lowers the scope and efficiency 
 of its spiritual mission, then to that extent it is sure to fail as an upUft- 
 ing force in society. 
 
 In the reUgious hfe of China, for example, whatever amiable and, 
 were it not for its idolatrous trend, comparatively venial faults may be 
 connected with the worship of ancestors, there are 
 certain aspects of the subject which inflict a bur- ^°"" effects of 
 
 ■^ ... ancestor-worship on 
 
 den of needless fears and pessimistic alarms upon Chinese society, 
 all Chinese society. The whole realm of the dead 
 becomes peopled with spirits, not of ancestors alone, but of thousands 
 who have died around them, and of this swarming host the Chinese 
 stand in troubled awe and haunting fear. " They worship them just as 
 they worship devils or demons to keep them away. They regard all 
 such pretty much as they do the living beggars who come to their doors, 
 and the sole object in contributing to either is to induce them to leave. 
 Shopmen who do not wish to be annoyed by the professional beggars 
 can be exempt by paying regularly in advance a certain sum to the king 
 of the beggars, who will place a mark over their doors that is readily 
 imderstood by all the craft of professionals. Thus the people hope, by 
 contributing at regular periods to the comfort of the forlorn spirits in 
 the other world, in Uke manner to be exempt from annoyance from 
 them." 1 This burden of worshipping the dead imposes an enormous 
 annual monetary outlay upon the Chinese, estimated by Dr. Yates at 
 $151,752,000. This immense expenditure to quiet the spirits of the 
 dead is not merely a tribute of filial piety or charity, but of servile fear. 
 The Uving become the slaves of the dead, and all in the name of reli- 
 gion. Mr. Smith, in "Chinese Characteristics" (p. 184), expresses his 
 conviction thus : " The true root of the Chinese practice of filial piety we 
 believe to be a mixture of fear and self-love, two of the most power- 
 ful motives which can act on the human soul. The spirits must be wor- 
 shipped on account of the power which they have for evil." Dr. Henry 
 says in the same connection : " The motives for this devotion are not 
 
 1 The Rev. M. T. Yates, D.D., in an essay on " Ancestral Worship, " published 
 in the " Report of the Shanghai Conference, 1877," p. 383. 
 
302 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 found in reverence or affection for the deceased, but in self-love and 
 fear of personal distress. The people are chained to the dead. They 
 cannot move or act without encountering prosperous or adverse influ- 
 ences excited by the spirits of the dead. They are kept all their life- 
 time in fear, not of death, but of the dead." i This dread of the spirits 
 overshadows the whole hfe of the Chinese. It gives to geomancy its 
 paralyzing influence, since it is dangerous to disturb the natural con- 
 figuration of the earth, lest it excite the fatal animosity of lurking spirits 
 of evil. Grading for a railway becomes presumptuous trifling with 
 unseen foes ; mining for coal, iron, copper, silver, and other metals is 
 simply a blasphemous assault upon a stronghold of demons. At every 
 turn the Chinaman has to reckon with impending calamity.^ This 
 brooding apprehension gives to the priestly class a monopoly of power 
 in the use of their supposed gift of exorcism, which they are not slow 
 to use. 
 
 Take, once more, the Chinese doctrine of metempsychosis, or the 
 possible transmigration of the soul, either for better or for worse, after 
 
 leaving the present life. Of this Dr. Martin re- 
 other uiustrations marks that he considers this doctrine, as generally 
 from China. held, " largely responsible for the prevalence of 
 
 suicide, leading those who are hopelessly wretched 
 to try their luck on another throw of the dice." ^ On the other hand, 
 in the expectation of a rewaird and a betterment of his condition in the 
 future state, the Chinaman looks to his Buddhist priest as the ' estab- 
 lished medium, through whom his merits may be demonstrated and 
 made known in heaven, and from whose hands he looks to receive his 
 official diploma of celestial promotion." * Here again is slavery, and 
 an opportunity for extortion which is not neglected. Once more, the 
 Chinese doctrine of merit robs morality of its power to command. By 
 special donations, or by gifts to charity or for religious purposes, the 
 Chinese believe that they can make atonement for immoral lives, and 
 so can purchase immunity from the condemnation of public opinion here, 
 and from the judgments of a higher tribunal beyond.^ All this serves 
 to illustrate the moral disorder which settles down upon society as the 
 result of mistaken conceptions of the nature and requirements of religion. 
 
 1 " The Cross and the Dragon," p. 125. Cf. also Du Bose, " The Dragon, 
 Image, and Demon," p. 80. 
 
 3 Henry, " The Cross and the Dragon," p. 150. 
 » " A Cycle of Cathay," p. 39. 
 * Curzon, " Problems of the Far East," p. 377. 
 » Moule, " New China and Old," p. 170. 
 
7'HE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 303 
 
 In India the strict observance of caste amounts to a religion with 
 the great mass of Hindus, so that social life is shot through and through 
 with the exactions of that strange system. In 
 other respects the religious ideas and practices of xhe social influence 
 Hinduism are a degrading social incubus. There "^ Hinduism, 
 
 are features of Hindu worship which no society 
 with any self-respect would tolerate, and which make social morality 
 impossible without an utter break with religion. So mysterious and 
 abominable are the tenets and the ceremonial observances of certain 
 sects in India that educated Hindus themselves stand aghast when they 
 undertake to refer to them in language addressed to Occidental read- 
 ers.^ Saivism, or the worship of Siva, and Vaishnavism, or the worship 
 of Vishnu, are mysteries into which the very passwords of entrance 
 must be left unsaid.!* Saktism, or the worship of force personified 
 as a goddess, as exemplified in the religious honors paid to Kali, Durga, 
 and other goddesses, often represented in places of worship by living 
 women, goes to an extreme which the Hindu himself recognizes as 
 esoteric' Then there is the endless repetition of the names of gods, 
 the worship of heroes, saints, and devotees, and the reverence paid to 
 animals, including especially cows, monkeys, and serpents, and the re- 
 ligious honors rendered to sacred trees and various inanimate objects, 
 all of which tend to lower the tone of religion and degrade it to the 
 level of superstition, until its influence as a social uplift is practically 
 destroyed. It has so little to do with the moral life of the people that 
 religion goes one way and social morals go another.* Fasts, festivals, 
 
 1 Mr. Bhattacharya, in his " Hindu Castes and Sects,'' designates a number of 
 Hindu sects as " disreputable,'' and in writing of the nature of Sakti worship he 
 draws a deep veil of reserve over his references. Concerning the image of Siva 
 which they worship, he remarks : " The true nature of such images is not generally 
 known, though it is defined in unmistakable terms in the Dhyan, or formula for 
 contemplating the Goddess Kali." In referring to the image of Kah, he states that 
 popular ideas on the subject by no means reach the mysterious vileness it suggests. 
 ' ' What its real meaning is, " he remarks, ' ' cannot possibly be explained here. Those 
 inclined to dive into such filth must study the ritual for Kali worship " (p. 408). 
 
 2 Sir M. Monier-Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," pp. 73-94, loi, 136, 
 137. 143; Bhattacharya, " Hindu Castes and Sects," p. 368. 
 
 3 Sir M. Monier-Williams, "Brahmanism and Hinduism," pp. 190-192; Wil- 
 kins, " Modern Hinduism," pp. 94, 193-321 ; Bhattacharya, " Hindu Castes and 
 Sects," pp. 407-413. 
 
 • " In this land of mysticism, religion has long been dissociated in the popular 
 mind from ordinary human conduct. To hundreds and thousands of people religion 
 is a something apart from the moral conduct of a person. He may be mean, or 
 selfish, or untruthful, he may cheat his neighbour or rob the poor widow, yet if he 
 
304 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 pilgrimages, holy days, and shrines, sacred waters with supposed powers 
 to pxirify, innumerable temples imposing in architecture and ornate in 
 furnishing, uncounted idols at every turn in the daily life— all give to 
 the religious life of India a depressing influence disastrous to social 
 weal. Indian Mohammedanism has certain features which deeply com- 
 promise its helpfulness, and, although it is far cleaner and more loyal 
 to higher religious truth than Hinduism, its social benefits are sadly 
 neutralized by its moral concessions. The fatal idea that sins against 
 society can be condoned, or atoned for by religious ceremonialism, and 
 even that merit may be accumulated in spite of moral laxity, pervades 
 more or less all the religious systems of India.^ As in China so in 
 
 performs a number of acts prescribed in the Shastras, or goes through the ordinances 
 of the current faith, or spends some hours of the day in sentimental ecstacies, he 
 consoles himself with the belief that he has fulfilled the best conditions of religious 
 life."— T'.i^ Indian Messenger, November 27, 1892. 
 
 1 Raja Rammohun Roy, a noted Indian reformer at the beginning of the present 
 century, in the introduction to his translation of the Isopanishad, remarks upon this 
 feature of Hinduism as follows : 
 
 " The chief part of the theory and practice of Hinduism, I am sorry to say, is 
 made to consist in the adoption of a peculiar mode of diet, the least aberration from 
 which (even though the conduct of the offender may in other respects be pure and 
 blameless) is not only visited with the severest censure, but actually punished by 
 exclusion from the society of his family and friends. In a word, he is doomed to 
 undergo what is commonly called loss of caste. 
 
 " On the contrary, the rigid observance of this grand article of Hindu faith is con- 
 sidered in so high a light as to compensate for every moral defect. Even the most 
 atrocious crimes weigh little or nothing in the balance against the supposed guilt of 
 its violation. 
 
 " Murder, theft, or perjury, though brought home to the party by a judicial sen- 
 tence, SQ far from inducing loss of caste, is visited in their society with no peculiar 
 mark of infamy or disgrace. 
 
 " A trifling present to the Brahman, commonly called /«y<wMj7, with the per- 
 formance of a few idle ceremonies, is held as a sufficient atonement for all these 
 crimes ; and the delinquent is at once freed from all temporal inconveniences, as well 
 as all dread of future retribution." 
 
 In an article on " Social and Religious Reform," published in The Hindu of 
 June 24, 1887, is found substantially the same verdict, as follows : 
 
 " The Hindu mythology has to be purged of the absurdities that have overgrown 
 it during centuries of ignorance and of superstitious and timid isolation. In the 
 same manner, the moral ideas of our common people have to be improved. An 
 orthodox Hindu would tolerate falsehood, cowardice, and self-abasement, but would 
 damn to perdition his neighbour who swerves the least from accepted conventions 
 even in the details of personal habits. Such moral perversity does not indicate a 
 healthy social condition. Similarly, our ideas of charity, of social distinction, education, 
 and social well-being in general, have to be drawn out of the influence of an obsolete 
 and backward civilization, and brought in harmony with the fresh spirit of the time." 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 305 
 
 India the religious atmosphere is deeply pessimistic. Fear is a con- 
 trolling influence in religious life. The anger of the gods hangs like a 
 brooding curse over life. The dread of evil spirits dwarfs the mind and 
 chills the heart. Religion is an aggressive struggle to ward off perils 
 and propitiate angry gods or malicious demons. The disadvantages of 
 a religious faith and practice so burdensome, so depressing, so mislead- 
 ing can be fully understood only by one who is familiar with the social 
 condition of the Indian people. 
 
 In Mohammedan lands there are strange and crude conceptions of 
 what religion is and what it requires. The influence of Islam, so far 
 as it relates to the cultivation of liberty, purity, 
 justice, and kindliness, is revealed in its own his- isiam and its relation 
 tory. It has ever taken an attitude towards to social morality, 
 humanity which is marked by relentless spiritual 
 and social despotism. True to its historic demand that all unbelievers 
 shall choose between Islam, tribute, and the sword, it offers to human- 
 ity its own rigid matrix, into which social hfe must flow and be cast 
 after the old Islamic model, or accept humiliation and ostracism as the 
 only alternatives. When the fanatical passions of Islam are stirred all 
 guarantees of public order are worthless. Mohammedan feasts and fes- 
 tivals, where the population is not constituted exclusively of Moslems, 
 often involve grave dangers. When the processions of the Muharram 
 Passion Play are in progress no Christian in Persia can venture upon 
 the streets, except at his peril. Wherever Islam is aggressively to the 
 front human society cannot count upon its safeguards, nor the State 
 upon its liberties. It has already smitten some of the fairest lands of 
 the earth with the blight of social disorder and decay.i Islam carries 
 into the family polygamy, unrestricted divorce, and slavery, the latter, as 
 a rule, being simply an indefinite and unrestrained expansion of the first, 
 under the guise of concubinage.^ In the name of the Moslem's reli- 
 
 1 Cf. article entitled " Turkey for the Turks," in The Independent, November 
 12, 1896, p. 15. 
 
 2 " As a social system," writes Stanley Lane-Poole, " Islam is a complete failure : 
 it has misunderstood the relation of the sexes, upon which the whole character of a 
 nation's life hangs, and, by degrading women, has degraded each successive genera- 
 tion of their children down an increasing scale of infamy and corruption, until it 
 seems almost impossible to reach a lower level of vice. 
 
 " The fatal spot in Islam is the degradation of women. The true test of a na- 
 tion's place in the ranks of civilisation is the position of its women. When they are 
 held in reverence, when it is considered the most infamous of crimes to subject a 
 woman to dishonour, and the highest distinction to protect her from wrong; when 
 the family life is real and strong, of which the mother- wife is the heart ; when each 
 man's pulse beats loyal to womanhood, then is a nation great. When women are 
 
306 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 gion there is all the scope to desire which an Oriental wishes. Is not 
 female slavery, with all that it practically means, down in the code ? 
 He therefore believes in it and practises it, so far as he is able, with a 
 religious as well as a fleshly zest. The Moslem soldier for centuries 
 has marched to his victories, not alone over the dead bodies of men, 
 but over the dishonored forms of women. He even departs for his 
 Paradise with the gleam of expectant passion in his glazing eyes. The 
 family life of Islam is a nursery of ideas which are necessarily fatal to 
 social purity.i Its political spirit gives no place to liberty and civilized 
 statecraft. The Moslem creed, in its attitude to both the State and the 
 family, in its spirit of ostracism, in its despotic assumptions, in its nar- 
 row bigotry, its rigid limitations to progress, its triumphant adjustment 
 of God's law to man's natural desire, and its failure to generate moral 
 character, is a striking illustration of the social blight which is sure to 
 result from a degrading conception of the nature and requirements of 
 religion. 
 
 The same difficulties which attended the reconstruction of social 
 
 morality among heathen converts in the apostolic age still hinder the 
 
 progress of Christianity in modern mission fields. 
 
 The difficulties of social *^ ° , . , ... 
 
 reconstruction in an It was not easy to banish pagan laxity from the new 
 environment of re- jjf g gf Christians in the great cities of the Roman 
 
 ligious degeneracy. ^ . _ , , , . , . 
 
 Empire. Some of the most searching and vigor- 
 ous passages in the apostolic epistles are directed to the emphasis and 
 elucidation of morality as an essential of Christian living. History is 
 repeating itself as Christianity enters the pagan environment of to-day. 
 Hundreds, even thousands, of natives in different mission fields in 
 Polynesia and Africa, and even in more enlightened Oriental lands, 
 have been, and are still, seeking admission to the Christian Church 
 without quite understanding why their inconsistent morality presents 
 any serious obstacle to their enrolment. Their old religions put little 
 or no restriction upon individual conduct or traditional social customs ; 
 why, therefore, should the new faith introduce such troublesome innova- 
 tions into the realm of every-day life? No student of the religious 
 condition of the world, however, will recognize this state of things as 
 pertaining to a heathen environment alone. In Mexico and the entire 
 
 treated as playthings, toys, drudges, worth anything only if they have beauty to be 
 enjoyed or strength to labour ; when sex is considered the chief thing in a woman, 
 and heart and mind are forgotten ; when a man buys women for his pleasure, and 
 dismisses them when his appetite is glutted, then is a nation despicable."—" Studies 
 in a Mosque," pp. loi, 102. 
 1 Lane, " Arabian Society in the Middle Ages," chap, ix., on " Women." 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 307 
 
 South American Continent, where Roman Catholic Christianity prevails, 
 the divorce of morality from religion seems to be almost as grievous and 
 as fatal in many respects as in non-Christian lands. 
 
 Enough has been said, without dwelling further upon this subject, to 
 show the social demoralization which is svue to attend a low conception 
 of the nature, purpose, and moral demands of religion. Is it not evi- 
 dent that reconstruction of society is made immensely more difficult 
 where there is moral paralysis arising from defective views of the na- 
 ture and tendencies of a true religious cult? 
 
 2. Idolatry.— That idolatry is degrading to the spiritual nature of 
 man need not be seriously argued. Its evil effects upon social life 
 are not quite so apparent ; yet a little reflection will 
 convince us that the degradation of the individual The. social degradation 
 character means inevitably the lowering of the spir- °f idolatry, 
 
 itual tone and the moral sensibilities of society. 
 To banish the living God from the individual consciousness means an 
 immense loss of inspiration, guidance, corrective discipline, moral re- 
 straint, spiritual courage, and ennobling impulse to the social life of a 
 people. Nothing will so quickly and hopelessly put the progressive forces 
 of society into a state of collapse, lower the practical influence of ethical 
 standards, weaken the power of higher motives, destroy the sense of re- 
 sponsibility, and dissipate the consciousness of moral obligation as the 
 substitution of idolatry for the worship and fear of a living personal 
 deity.i If man regards himself as accountable only to dumb images, 
 even though they may be regarded as symbols of deity, he soon loses 
 his touch with a personal God. The history of idolatry, however, shows 
 that to the popular mind the refinements of the symbolic conception of 
 idols soon lose their distinctive sway, while the idol itself, as an object 
 of reverence and fear, gains a sure ascendancy. The apologetic con- 
 ception that idols are merely symbols of a supreme deity, and are used 
 as such by idolaters, is far from tenable. The facts of history and ex- 
 perience give little evidence in its favor. On the contrary, idolatry as 
 it actually exists, and has always existed, in the world is almost without 
 exception the worship of idols as such, or at least as the personification 
 of some mysterious forces of the supernatural or natural world.^ 
 
 1 Cf. March, " Morning Light in Many Lands," chap, xiii., " Faith and Hope in 
 Heathen Lands." 
 
 2 " Until recent years no one ever thought of apologising for idolatry. We have 
 now reached a stage, however, when it is a common thing to hear it explained, de- 
 fended, and justified ; a philosophy of idolatry, so to speak, has sprung up, and has 
 
308 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The opinion of learned natives of India as to the practical meaning 
 of idolatry gives a far truer view of it. Rammohun Roy, early in the 
 
 present century, writing upon this subject, notices 
 
 la there a tenable this specious explanation of idolatry only to con- 
 
 apoiogy for idolatry ? demn it. " I have observed," he remarks, " that 
 
 both in their writings and conversation many 
 Europeans feel a wish to palliate and soften the features of Hindu 
 idolatry, and are inclined to inculcate that all objects of worship are 
 considered by their votaries as emblematical representations of the 
 Supreme Divinity! If this were indeed the case, I might perhaps be 
 led into some examination of the subject ; but the truth is, the Hindus 
 of the present day have no such views of the subject, but firmly believe 
 in the real existence of innumerable gods and goddesses, who possess 
 in their own departments full and independent power ; and to propitiate 
 them, and not the true God, are temples erected and ceremonies per- 
 formed." He further remarks : " Neither do they regard the images of 
 these gods merely in the light of instruments for elevating the mind to 
 the conception of those supposed beings ; they are simply in themselves 
 made objects of worship. For whatever Hindu purchases an idol in 
 the market, or constructs one with his own hands, or has one made 
 under his own superintendence, it is his invariable practice to perform 
 certain ceremonies, called pran pratishtha, or the endowment of anima- 
 tion, by which he believes that its nature is changed from that of the 
 mere materials of which it is formed, and that it acquires not only life, 
 but supernatural powers. Shortly afterwards, if the idol be of the 
 masculine gender, he marries it to a feminine one, with no less pomp 
 and magnificence than he celebrates the nuptials of his own children. 
 The mysterious process is now complete, and the god and goddess are 
 esteemed the arbiters of his destiny, and continually receive his most 
 ardent adoration." 
 
 been so far accepted that not only is it adopted by the priests and servitors of idol 
 temples, but is endorsed, even if it were not originally invented, by many highly 
 cultivated European apologists. We are told, briefly, that images are intended to, 
 and actually do, help the ignorant masses in their devotions. They are quite unable, 
 it is contended, to form for themselves an abstract ideal, and the concrete image 
 therefore is a step towards progress, as a focus for aspiration and concentration of 
 devotion. It is contended that these idols of wood and stone, of metal or mud, as 
 the case may be, are in no case worshipped, but are really only objects into which 
 the worshipper first thinks the god, and then worships, not the image, but the par- 
 ticular divinity, great or small, good or otherwise, which the image is supposed 
 to represent."— "Idolatry and its Apologists," by the Rev. T. H. Whitamore 
 (W. M. S.), in Work and Workers in the Mission Field, May, 1895, P- 189. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 309 
 
 It seems clear to a candid student of religious history that if in certain 
 instances the original concept of the idol was symbolical of a supreme 
 deity, it was just as often simply the personification of some force 
 of nature or some lower order of created being. There may be ob- 
 scurity in the matter of historic sequences or precise details involved 
 in the genesis of idolatry, but its spirit and purpose, and therefore its 
 spiritual in distinction from its historical origin, are clearly intimated by 
 the apostle Paul in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. He 
 there pronounces it to be a device of the wayward imagination of man 
 to substitute a visible, tangible, material object of worship in the place 
 of the spiritual God. It resulted from an unhallowed and presumptuous 
 desire to lower the Deity to an earthly environment, and bring Him 
 into touch with the carnal life and customs of an apostate society. It 
 was a bold expedient to banish the Creator from their thoughts by the 
 invention of some substitute from the realm of the creature.^ 
 
 1 Archdeacon Farrar has given a trenchant exposition of the genesis and efifects 
 of idolatry, based upon this passage from St. Paul. Speaking of heathen idolaters, 
 as Paul regarded them, he says : 
 
 "The facts which render them inexcusable are: (l) That God did in reality 
 manifest Himself to them, and the invisibilities of His eternal povirer and Godhead 
 were clearly visible in His works ; and (2) that though they knew God, yet by 
 denying Him the due glory and gratitude they suffered themselves to plunge into the 
 penal darkness of ignorant speculation, and the penal folly of self-asserted wisdom, 
 and the self-conceited boast of a degraded culture, until they sank to such depths of 
 spiritual imbecility as to end even in the idolatry of reptiles ; and (3) because mental 
 infatuation, both as to its natural result and as to its fearful punishment, issued in 
 moral crime. Their sin was inexcusable, because it was the outcome, and the 
 retribution, and the natural child, of sin. Because they guiltily abandoned God, 
 God abandoned them to their own guiltiness. The conscious lie of idolatry became 
 the conscious infamy of uncleanness. These ' passions of dishonour, ' to which God 
 abandoned them, ruled the heart of manhood with their retributive corruption, and 
 affected even women with their execrable stain. Pagan society, in its hideous dis- 
 integration, became one foul disease of unnatural depravity. The cancer of it ate 
 into the heart ; the miasma of it tainted the air. Even the moralists of Paganism 
 were infected with its vileness. God scourged their moral ignorance by suffering it 
 to become a deeper ignorance. He punished their contempt by letting them make 
 themselves utterly contemptible. The mere consequence of this abandonment of 
 them was a natural Nemesis, a justice in kind, beginning even in this life, whereby 
 their unwillingness to discern Him became an incapacity to discern the most ele- 
 mentary distinctions between nobleness and shame. Therefore their hearts became 
 surcharged with every element of vileness ; with impurity in its most abysmal deg- 
 radations; with hatred alike in its meanest and most virulent developments; with 
 insolence culminating in the deliberate search for fresh forms of evil; with cruelty 
 and falsity in their most repulsive features. And the last and worst crime of ail- 
 beyond which crime itself could go no further— was the awful defiant attitude of 
 
310 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The spirit of idolatry is the same to-day as it was of old. It is a 
 compound of ignorance, fear, carnality, and the unhallowed desire to 
 identify human conceptions with the object of reli- 
 The spirit of gious worship. It involves a curious mixture of 
 
 contemporary idolatry, fearful imagining, brooding terror, puerile coax- 
 ing, anxious propitiation, inordinate feasting, and 
 riotous indulgence. It is absolutely certain that idolatry and immoral- 
 ity go hand in hand.i The moral nature withers and collapses as it 
 bows in adoration before a material image. The ancient Vedic religion, 
 before it became wholly polytheistic, was far purer in its morality than 
 modern Hinduism with its wanton idolatry. The descent into idolatry 
 has always brought the corresponding collapse of morality. It cannot 
 be otherwise, since the materializing of worship means the materializing 
 of moral standards.^ Man cannot rise above the things that he adores : 
 " They that make them are like unto them ; so is every one that trusteth 
 in them." 
 
 moral evil, which led them — while they were fully aware of God's sentence of death, 
 pronounced as willing guilt — not only to incur it themselves, but, with a devilish 
 delight in human depravity and human ruin, to take a positive pleasure in those who 
 practise the same. Sin, as has been truly said, reaches its climax in wicked maxims 
 and wicked principles. It is no longer Vice the result of moral weakness, or the 
 outcome of an evil education, but Vice deliberately accepted with all its consequences, 
 Vice assuming the airs of self-justification. Vice in act becoming Vice in elaborate 
 theory — the unblushing shamelessness of Sodom in horrible aggravation of its 
 polluting sin."— "The Life and Works of St. Paul," vol. ii., p. 195 sq. 
 
 1 Cf. an article entitled " On Idolatry,'' by the late Rev. Samuel Mateer, of 
 Travancore, India, in The Missionary Review of the World, May, 1895, pp. 331- 
 
 339- 
 
 2 Keshub Chunder Sen thus addressed his countrymen upon this subject : 
 
 " There can be no doubt that the root of all the evils which afflict Hindu society, 
 that which constitutes the chief cause of its degradation, is idolatry. Idolatry is the 
 curse of Hindustan, the deadly canker that has eaten into the vitals of native society. 
 It would be an insult to your superior education to say that you have faith in idol- 
 atry, that you still cherish in your hearts reverence for the gods and goddesses of 
 the Hindu pantheon, or that you believe in the thousand and one absurdities of your 
 ancestral creed. But however repugnant to your understanding and repulsive to 
 your good sense the idolatry of your forefathers may be, there is not a thorough ap- 
 preciation of its deadly character on moral grounds. It will not do to retain in the 
 mind a speculative and passive disbelief in its dogmas : you must practically break 
 with it as a dangerous sin and an abomination ; you must give it up altogether as an 
 unclean thing. You must discountenance it, discourage it, oppose it, and hunt it 
 out of your country. For the sake of your souls and for the sake of the souls of the 
 millions of your countrymen, come away from hateful idolatry, and acknowledge the 
 one supreme and true God, our Maker, Preserver, and Moral Governor, not in be- 
 lief only, but in the every-day concerns and avocations of your life." 
 
,rA 
 
 • ^/-n--, 
 
 •% 
 
 *^> 
 
 1 »;;'* 
 
 
 A Study in Idols. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 311 
 
 The idolatry of the heathen world to-day is not one whit less 
 loathsome or degrading or sinful than that of any age of classical his- 
 tory. It stands on precisely the same level of 
 ignorance, superstition, and spiritual shame, and The abiding moral 
 where its carnality is manifested, its sensual aban- bUght of idoi- 
 
 ■' ' ^vorshlp. 
 
 don and mystical vileness can match anything in 
 the records of pagan hcense.^ While there are degrees of grossness, 
 superstition, and degradation in idol-worship, ranging from the philo- 
 sophical refinements of a limited circle of enlightened Japanese ^ to the 
 dense ignorance of the savage tribes, yet the moral blight of idol- 
 worship is found wherever idolatrous customs prevail. The idol gods 
 of Japan,^ Korea, China,* India, Africa, and many of the South Sea 
 Islands are not less hideous and repulsive than the idols of the ancients. 
 We need not dwell longer upon this theme. It is sufficient for our 
 
 1 Dr. Storrs, in " The Divine Origin of Christianity," p. 38, has given a vivid 
 picture of the immoralities of pagan worship. 
 
 2 The persistency of these idolatrous customs is illustrated even in a country so 
 ready to break with the past as Japan. The backward look is evident in the recent 
 action of the Japanese Diet in voting funds for the erection of two temples in For- 
 mosa, and in providing a place of worship in Japan where the spirit of a lately de- 
 ceased prince was to receive religious honors. It is in contemplation at present to 
 celebrate the recent victories over China by the erection of a gigantic statue of Bud- 
 dha, 120 feet in height, and costing $1,000,000, to be cast out of metal taken from 
 the ordnance captured from the enemy. A department of religious oversight and 
 direction has also just been established, by vote of Parliament, with an o£ficial at its 
 head who will have the management of matters pertaining to Shintoism, the old na- 
 tional religion of the country. The appointment of a priestly functionary in the civil 
 government, or one whose office practically involves religious authority, is full of 
 ominous possibilities. It threatens at once the very existence of religious liberty. — 
 Condensed from a Japanese journal. 
 
 3 Bishop Hendrix, in articles on " The Three Japans," published in The Inde- 
 pendent, May 21 and 28, 1896, speaks of the Official, the Old, and the Christian 
 Japan. Of the second he writes : 
 
 " There is another, or Old Japan, which is no less devoted to its idolatrous or 
 ancestral shrines than if Commodore Perry had never appeared in the harbor of 
 Yeddo, or if the Mikado had never removed his capital from Kyoto. This Japan 
 probably numbers nearly forty millions. It is divided between Shintoism and Bud- 
 dhism. It has a hundred thousand more Buddhist temples than there are individual 
 
 * " If I might point out the gravest of the social evils of China— a subject upon 
 which I have studied— it is idolatry."- Rev. H. C. Du Bose (P. B. F. M. S.), 
 Soochow, China. 
 
 " There are more than two thousand temples in Peking, and I have heard Chi- 
 nese say that there are more than thirty thousand domestic shrines."— Professor 
 I. T. Headland (M. E. M. S.), Peking, China. 
 
312 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 purpose in this connection to contemplate the dismal fact that millions, 
 even hundreds of millions, of our fellow-beings are down on their knees 
 every day before innumerable idols. What can we hope to accomplish 
 in the social elevation of the world until a purer and nobler spiritual 
 worship is put into the human heart? Until the adoration of the one 
 living and true God shall take possession of the immortal mind of man, 
 and banish the thronging demons and the grinning idols, there is little 
 prospect of the regeneration of heathen society. 
 
 3. Superstition.— Superstition is faith in the false or unreal. It 
 is produced, in whatever sphere of thought it may exist, by making 
 erroneous and absurd fancies the bases of faith. 
 The prevalence and A superstitious mind is One which is deceived and 
 power of superstition, imposed upon by convictions or fears or fancies 
 which are visionary like the unrealities they repre- 
 sent. A superstitious society is one which is haunted by mental phan- 
 toms and by imaginary visitations which the whole community believes 
 to be real. While the visionary character of these convictions may be 
 granted, yet the superstitions themselves can be very real and porten- 
 tous to those over whom they have dominion. They fill the imagina- 
 tion and take possession of the mind as if they were truth itself. This 
 is what makes them so dangerous and so little amenable to the reason. 
 The part played by superstitions in the control of the human mind, 
 
 Christians in Japan. It is industrious, patriotic, contented, especially when the rice 
 crop is abundant and the taxes not too heavy, or vchen the nets are laden with fish 
 and the typhoons deal gently with the junks. They know only of the religion of 
 their fathers. They bow before their ancestral shrines, make their offerings of rice, 
 burn incense, make their ' dead boats ' at the appointed season for the spirits to re- 
 turn in, and seek to propitiate the fox, whose cunning they so much dread. Morally 
 it is not much removed from the days of the Shoguns, despite the public schools and 
 numerous newspapers, and the elaborate postal system which reaches every part of 
 the empire. Nor is this Old Japan simply rural Japan. The worshippers in many 
 of the temples of Tokyo go on electric cars, and pilgrims to sacred Nikko or Ise go 
 by railroad. Costly shrines are to be found in the homes or business houses of the 
 wealthy merchants or manufacturers in the treaty ports. Children from the public 
 schools are none the less attendants at the temples. Official Japan, with all its 
 wonderful progress, has not overthrown a single altar or destroyed a single heathen 
 temple." 
 
 In The Japan Evangelist ior December, 1895, occurs the following paragraph : 
 
 " Idolatry is by no means a thing of the past in this country. At a place called 
 
 Narita there is a celebrated idol of the god Fudo. Thousands of people pray to this 
 
 image annually. It is said that not for eighty years has the number of worshippers 
 
 been so great as during the past twelve months." 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 313 
 
 and the decisive sway which they exercise over human conduct, are 
 hardly realized by those who dwell in the Ught of civilization. Magi- 
 cians, soothsayers, necromancers, sorcerers, diviners, and astrologers 
 have ever been prowling amid the ruins of man's early faith, and seek- 
 ing to impose upon him with their audacious claims. The ignorant and 
 superstitious, or those who have become unbalanced in their allegiance 
 to the one divine Guide, become their easy victims. Christianity has 
 had a long struggle with this unclean and uncanny brood, not with- 
 out serious reverses, and even now only among an enlightened majority 
 of modern Christendom has a final emancipation been accomplished. 
 
 In the heathen world superstitions, especially of a religious character, 
 abound to an almost incredible extent. They hold an easy ascendancy, 
 and maintain their sway over the mind with singular pertinacity. The 
 struggle which it costs to part with darling delusions is pitiful. The 
 fear and misery which attend the casting out of gross and cruel phantas- 
 magoria from the minds of those who have been under their dominion 
 are touching evidences of the reality of the tyranny which false belief 
 establishes over its victims. 
 
 In China superstition is the native air of the people. Fung-shui 
 (literally, " wind and water ") is a system of geomancy which is supposed 
 by the Chinese to contain an esoteric secret of 
 
 successful living. The earth itself, and the cir- Geomancy and demon- 
 
 cumambient air, are considered to be the abode Chinese, 
 
 of the spirits, and are therefore regarded as sacred 
 and inviolable. Railways, telegraphs, mining, scientific road-making, 
 and all other Western abominations which threaten to disturb the mys- 
 terious haunts of the spirits or to disarrange the immemorial fixedness 
 which characterizes the hallowed undulations of the earth's surface, 
 are looked upon by the Chinese as intolerable outrages, involving a 
 terrifying element of reckless presumption.^ The priesthood through- 
 out China, especially the Taoists, who are experts in magic, trade upon 
 the multitudinous superstitions of the people. ^ Demoniacal possession 
 is a sober fact to all Chinese. Every one believes in it as thoroughly 
 as he believes in his existence. He can no more free himself from 
 it than he can banish the sunshine. He lives in a grim environment 
 
 1 Douglas, " Society in China," pp. 340, 341 ; Ball, " Things Chinese," sub 
 " Geomancy," p. 204; Martin, "A Cycle of Cathay," p. 41. 
 
 2 Douglas, " Society in China," p. 407. Cf. also Fielde, " A Corner of Cathay," 
 pp. 139-151. In this chapter on "Sundry Superstitions" Miss Fielde places in 
 curious array some marvels of the Chinese imagination, grave, gay, and gruesome. 
 See also Henry, " The Cross and the Dragon," p. iii, and Holcombe, " The Real 
 Chinaman," p. 144. 
 
314 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of viewless spirits, whose machinations may at any moment blight his 
 existence. " Possession " is the trade-mark of a regular profession, the 
 members of which rely upon their supposed capacity for solving diffi- 
 culties and suggesting methods of escape from all the ills of life. 
 There seems to be an extraordinary susceptibility in the Chinese, which 
 brings them easily under the power of occult suggestions. Almost every 
 book on China has its chapter dealing with these phenomena. Perhaps 
 the most notable of them all, considering its source, is " Demon Pos- 
 session and Allied Themes," by the late Dr. J. L. Nevius, a distinguished 
 missionary of the Presbyterian Church in China.^ The custom of an- 
 cestor-worship is allied to the whole subject of demonology, and gives 
 it, no doubt, much of its mighty supremacy over the Chinese mind. 
 
 In Japan, perhaps, superstitions are not so abundant as in China, but 
 
 there is still an occult realm in which the great mass of the people 
 
 thoroughly beheve, and where their imaginations 
 
 are forever excursionizing.^ The sly and frohc- 
 
 Japanese occultism, • i i_ t 
 
 some fox seems to play havoc with the Japanese 
 fancy ; at least, he appears to be the most promi- 
 nent figure in much of the " possession " which the people experience.^ 
 While Japan is becoming enlightened, but only as yet within a very 
 
 1 Consult also Du Bose, " The Dragon, Image, and Demon," chap, xxx., on 
 " Demonolatry. " 
 
 Dr. Henry, in " The Cross and the Dragon," p. 170, writes of Chinese supersti- 
 tions as follows : " Their belief in spirits is notorious. Elves, fairies, brownies, imps, 
 etc., abound. Haunted houses are frequent. They believe in spirit-rapping, plan- 
 chette, alchemy, mesmerism, and divination of various kinds — by bamboo slips, by 
 images, by somnambulism, chiromancy, and palmistry. Branches are hung over the 
 doors to ward off evil influences, and cash swords are suspended inside their bed-cur- 
 tains as protection against nocturnal spirits. Their roads are always crooked, and 
 abound in sharp turns and corners, so made to obstruct the approach of spirits, which 
 delight in broad, straight ways. The houses on a street are never built in an even line, 
 but present somewhat of a zigzag appearance, as some project, while others are set in. 
 This is done intentionally to check the spirits. Corner houses are avoided because 
 their position affords such facilities for the evil spirits to sweep around them. The 
 gable end of a house with its sharp roof turned to the street indicates that only a 
 barber shop will prosper opposite. The entrance to a house is never direct. A 
 screen just within necessitates a turn to the right or to the left, and the arrangement 
 of the open court, with its flowers and other ornaments, shows a circuitous path to 
 the inner apartments. Many accounts of supernatural appearances are met with, 
 such as the story of the fairy who visited the Emperor Leang, and in reply to his 
 question whence she came, said, ' I live on the terrace of the Sun, in the enchanted 
 mountains. In the morning I am a cloud, in the evening a shower of rain.' " 
 
 2 Cf. Lowell, " Occult Japan; or, The Way of the Gods." 
 8 Chamberlain, "Things Japanese," p. to6. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 315 
 
 limited circle, the vast mass of her people are still under the sway of 
 thronging superstitions, many of them light and trifling, but others 
 serious and portentous.^ 
 
 Korea is the haunted house among the nations. It is a land of 
 phantom hosts and demoniacal cohorts. It is afflicted with what Dr. 
 Griffis calls the " delirium tremens of paganism." ^ 
 Its cities, villages, and homes, its palaces, public Korea the haunt of 
 buildings, and temples, its streets, lanes, and by- spectres, 
 
 ways, its highways, mountains, and caves, with a 
 thousand objects of nature on every side, are all on the defensive with 
 guards and devices to ward off the gruesome visitors, or are themselves 
 objects of suspicion to be either avoided or placated.^ Sickness, dis- 
 tress, and disaster are all supposed to be due to demoniacal agency, 
 and this fact provides lucrative employment to the exorcists.* Good 
 spirits, especially the supposed guardians of houses, are worshipped 
 
 1 " Out of the soil of diseased imagination has sprung up a growth as terrible as 
 the drunkard's phantasies. The earthquake, flood, tidal wave, famine, withering or 
 devastating wind, and poisonous gases, the geological monsters and ravening bird, 
 beast, and fish, have their representatives or supposed incarnations in mythical 
 phantasms. Frightful as these shadows of the mind appear, they are both very real 
 and, in a sense, very necessary to the ignorant man. He must have some theory by 
 which to explain the phenomena of nature and soothe his own terrors. Hence he peo- 
 ples the earth and water, not only with invisible spirits more or less malevolent, but 
 also with bodily presences usually in terrific bestial form. To those who believe in one 
 Spirit pervading, ordering, governing all things, there is unity amid all phenomena, 
 and the universe is all order and beauty. To the mind which has not reached this 
 height of simplicity, instead of one cause there are many. The diverse phenomena 
 of nature are brought about by spirits innumerable, warring and discordant. Instead 
 of a unity to the mind, as of sun and solar system, there is nothing but planets, 
 asteroids, and a constant rain of shooting stars." — Griifis, " The Religions of Japan," 
 pp. 14, 15. 
 
 2 " Corea, the Hermit Nation," p. 306. 
 
 3 Curzon, " Problems of the Far East," p. 109. 
 
 * " The belief in demoniacal possession is very common. This belief is fostered 
 by numbers whose interests are furthered by it. The exorcists and conjurers find 
 in the commonest ailments excuses for using their powers in dispossessing the sick 
 body of the sprites which have made it their home. It was no infrequent occurrence, 
 in rambles over the country or when out hunting, to hear the noise of drums and to 
 see a crowd around some house, waiting with eager curiosity to learn the result. 
 Inquiry would elicit the fact that some devils had entered that house, and the sick- 
 ness of one of the inmates had resulted. Meanwhile, day and night, it may be for 
 a week, the ceaseless beat of drums is maintained, until nature is either wearied out 
 and death results, or she recovers herself and the patient is restored to health. 
 
 " Spirits good and bad, sprites evil and benign, fairies kindly and malign, abound 
 on hill and in dale, in nook and crevice of the rock, in hollow trees and cunningly 
 
316 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 most devoutly. The sanitary fastidiousness of these guardian spirits is 
 a curious feature of their relation to the people. If they could only be 
 persuaded to exert their influence in the direction of scientific sanitary 
 measures, much good might result.^ 
 
 India is a land of myths, a perfect " jungle of disorderly supersti- 
 tions, ghosts and demons, demigods and deified saints, household gods, 
 local gods, tribal gods, universal gods, with their 
 India and the reign of couutless shriucs and tcmples." Sir Alfred Lyall 
 the mantra. speaks of the " extraordinary fecundity of the su- 
 
 perstitious sentiment." The whole country is alive 
 with imaginary terrors — it is a realm swarming with ghostly fears. Dev- 
 otees in every direction are working with might and main to free them- 
 selves from some dire fate or win some hoped-for merit. The wily Brah- 
 man, with his monopoly of enchantments, can count upon the absolute 
 mental servility of the spellbound Hindus. The mantra is his ready 
 and facile tool. This is a sacred text, usually of Vedic origin, trans- 
 formed into a spell or charm, which, if pronounced in accordance with 
 some mystical formula and with absolute accuracy of enunciation, be- 
 
 hidden caves. Any event of life may be governed by their interference. Luck plays 
 a large part in the economy of native life. Innumerable are the specifics for various 
 ills, the former growing out of the care, and the latter out of the malevolence, of 
 fairies or demons. Children are scared into good behavior and adults are kept at 
 home by reports of spirits that are abroad at night. Omens are seen in the visits 
 of the birds ; the dreams which disturb the night are portents ; and almost every 
 chance event has for Koreans a bearing on the future." — Gilmore, " Korea from its 
 Capital," pp. 194, 195. 
 
 1 " There are also self-existent spirits of kindlier disposition and the spirits of the 
 good and prosperous, who may be induced by proper intercessions, accompanied by 
 offerings, to deliver the afflicted from the power of the evil spirits. The good of 
 each individual in this life is dependent on his ability to keep the favor of the latter 
 class, and to do so is the constant and deep anxiety which makes other considerations 
 secondary. Comforts and bare necessities of life are sacrificed for this. 
 
 " At every house the god of the site is worshipped. At every house, when in- 
 vited with becoming ceremony, the house-god dwells. This spirit is supposed to 
 bring health and happiness to the inmates of the house, though he is not able always 
 to ward off disease, and in case of contagious fevers he will leave the house till it 
 has been purified and he has been asked to return. The ceremonies attending the 
 introduction or recall of this spirit are rather interesting. The house having been 
 purified and a feast prepared, the mootang (sorceress), who has been called for the 
 occasion, starts out to hunt the house-god. She ties a good-sized sheet of paper 
 around an oak rod, which she holds upright in her hand. She may find the spirit 
 just outside the house, or she may have to go some distance before he indicates his 
 presence by shaking the rod with so much force that many men with their united 
 strength could not hold it still. He accompanies the mootang to the house. Upon 
 their arrival great demonstrations of joy are made that he has come to bless the 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHklSTIAN WORLD 317 
 
 comes an all-powerful talisman. This magical device is used for 
 securing good or evil, as the case may be, and is used by the mantra- 
 sastris — Brahmans who make a profession of trading in mantras. 
 They are regarded with supernatural reverence and fear by the Hin- 
 dus.i Austerities, curses, omens, the evil eye, and the marvelous horo- 
 scope of the astrologer are all of intense significance to the Hindu. 
 That this grim procession of phantasies, and the attendant mystical ex- 
 pedients which they imply, should be inevitable in the mental outlook 
 of the philosophic and acute Hindu seems manifest. Without the true 
 light of revelation and science, he must seek such rehef as his own fer- 
 tile imagination can invent. His deeply mystical, and at the same time 
 deeply sensuous, nature has reared an imposing pantheon of phantas- 
 magoria, where he dwells with restless soul and tortured sensibiUties. 
 
 family with his presence. The paper which was tied around the stick is folded, 
 soaked in wine, a. few pieces of cash slipped into it, and then tossed up against a 
 beam in the house, to which it adheres. Rice is thrown up, some of which sticks to 
 the paper. That particular spot is to be the abiding-place of the spirit. The expense 
 connected with this ceremony is considerable, and in some cases poverty compels a 
 family to dispense with it. 
 
 " The word mama, which we hear applied to smallpox, is not the name of the 
 disease, but of the spirit whose presence with the victim is indicated by the disease. 
 He has been known in Korea only during the last one thousand years, I have been 
 told, and his native place is Southern China. When the disease makes its appear- 
 ance the mootang is called to honor the spirit with appropriate ceremonies and a 
 feast. During his stay no work, or as little as possible, is done, even by the neigh- 
 bors, especially if they have children who have not had the disease, lest, displeased 
 with the lack of respect shovra him, he deal severely with them. The parents do 
 obeisance to the afflicted child, addressing it at all times in terms of highest respect. 
 When the twelfth day has passed, if the child live through it, all danger being then 
 supposed to be over, the mootang is again called and a farewell banquet given. A 
 miniature wooden horse is prepared and loaded with miniature sacks of food and 
 money for the spirit's journey, and he is bidden adieu with many wishes for a safe 
 return to his native place."— Quoted from an article on " Spirit- Worship in Korea,'' 
 by Mrs. D. L. Gifford (P. B. F. M. N.), Seoul, Korea, in Woman's Work in the 
 Far East, May, 1894, pp. 107-109. 
 
 1 The following description of the mantra-monger is from the pen of Sir M. 
 Monier- Williams : 
 
 " No magician, wizard, sorcerer, or witch, whose feats are recorded in history, 
 biography, or fable, has ever pretended to be able to accomplish by incantation and 
 enchantment half of what the mantra-sastri claims to have power to effect by help 
 of his mantras. For example, he can prognosticate futurity, work the most startling 
 prodigies, infuse breath into dead bodies, kill or humiliate enemies, afflict any one 
 anywhere with disease or madness, inspire any one with love, charm weapons and 
 give them unerring efficacy, enchant armour and make it impenetrable, turn milk 
 into wine, plants into meat, or invert all such processes at will. He is even superior 
 to the gods, and can make gods, goddesses, imps, and demons carry out his most 
 
318 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PkOGRESS 
 
 The same story of talismans, omens, and every-day marvels of 
 
 jinn, afreet, and magical paraphernalia, runs through the religious and 
 
 social life of Moslems in India, Persia, and Tur- 
 
 The "Arabian Nights" key, while numerous superstitions are prevalent 
 
 up to date. among the unreformed Christian sects of the Le- 
 
 vant.i In fact, the Oriental Christians, except as 
 
 the enlightenment of modern education has entered among them, are 
 
 hardly less the victims of credulity than their Moslem neighbors. 
 
 In Africa there is a rank growth of overshadowing superstitions as 
 real as daylight and darkness to the diseased imagination of the native. 
 Totemism, fetichism, animism, in their pristine vigor or in degenerate 
 forms, are in absolute possession of all the religious and social life of 
 the people. Sorcery, witchcraft, and every phase of demoniacal en- 
 vironment are the intellectual atmosphere of the native African.^ 
 
 Australasia outside of the modern colonial expansion, but including 
 
 the Pacific Islands, has been noted for immemorial superstitions, many 
 
 of which were abominable in their character, and 
 
 all of which held terrific sway over the imagination. 
 
 Demon-ridden islands. ^ .. ,,^.,.t» i .i i 
 
 In wntmg of the Pacific Islands, Alexander says : 
 " Distressing superstitions darkened all the lives of 
 the natives and held them in iron bondage. In the long night of their 
 isolation from enlightening influences they had come to worship in- 
 numerable gods and demigods and demons, with which they supposed 
 the sky and earth and sea to swarm. With this worship were com- 
 bined painful restrictions, called tabu, divination, sorcery, the use of 
 charms to cure sickness, and black arts to employ evil spirits in de- 
 stroying their enemies." ^ Great enhghtenment has come to many of 
 these islands, where the long, dark reign of superstition has, to a great 
 extent, passed away. In places where it still holds the old sway over 
 the mind, fears and siospicions predominate in the daily experience of 
 
 trifling behests. Hence it is not surprising that the following remarkable saying is 
 everywhere current throughout India : ' The whole universe is subject to the gods ; 
 the gods are subject to the mantras ; the mantras to the Brahmans ; therefore the 
 Brahmans are our gods.'" — " Brahmanism and Hinduism," pp. 201, 202. 
 
 1 "Superstition in Syria," by Dr. George A. Ford, in Woman's Work for 
 Woman, December, 1895, p. 323; Wilson, " Persian Life and Customs," pp. 84, 
 132. 143. 157. 220-225. 
 
 2 Jevons, " Introduction to the History of Religion " ; Macdonald, " Religion 
 and Myth"; Tyler, " Forty Years among the Zulus," chap. xii. ; Sibree, " Mada- 
 gascar before the Conquest," especially chap. xiii. 
 
 3 " The Islands of the Pacific," p. 28. Cf. Ratzel, " History of Mankind," voL 
 i., pp. 300-330. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 319 
 
 natives. There are still, unhappily, vast populations that are demon- 
 ridden, and live under the blight of dominant superstitions, childish as 
 well as terrifying.! 
 
 Almost everywhere upon the face of the earth a gross darkness of 
 ignorance seems to rest upon the hearts of men. A heavy burden of 
 erroneous belief, both distressing and degrading, 
 has become fixed upon their consciences, and there superstition a social 
 it remains, except as the light of Christian educa- calamity, 
 
 tion and Gospel instruction breaks in upon their 
 night and introduces them into the freedom of the truth. The blighting 
 power of these superstitions on social life is beyond question. It is 
 mental and spiritual slavery to the unreal and the untrue which is 
 blinding, misleading, and sure to result in injustice, cruelty, and the 
 gbuse of power. It prohibits the entrance of true light so far as it has 
 power to do so, and maintains entirely false standards of social obli- 
 gation. It scatters and dissipates the religious sentiment among a mass 
 of puerile and erroneous vagaries, barring out the truth and fixing the 
 dominance of the false. The banishment of superstition will go far 
 toward securing a brighter and more cheerful social life and a higher 
 and more beneficial social order. 
 
 4. Religious Tyranny and Persecution.— The sacred gift of 
 religious freedom is an endowment from the Creator, and, except where 
 it is claimed as a cover for immorality and crime, 
 is a universal prerogative of man.^ Humanity The genesis of 
 
 cannot be deprived of this precious liberty with- persecution, 
 
 out the infliction of a great and cruel wrong ; yet 
 this heinous usurpation has been characteristic of both the political and 
 religious Hfe of mankind in all ages. " Christianos ad leones " repre- 
 sents a spirit of persecution which has prevailed more or less through- 
 
 1 Michelsen, " Cannibals Won for Christ," chap, xv., on " Native Supersti- 
 tions"; Chalmers, "Pioneering in New Guinea," chap, viii., on "The Habits, 
 Customs, and Beliefs of Motu and Motumotu." 
 
 2 " Liberty is the greatest gift of God to man. It is a natural, fundamental, and 
 inalienable right of every man created in the image of God. The most precious of 
 all liberties is religious liberty. It is rooted in the sacredness of conscience, which 
 is the voice of God in man, and above the reach and control of human authority. It 
 is a law above all human laws that " we ought to obey God rather than man.' Lib- 
 erty of conscience requires liberty of worship. Despots allow the one because they 
 cannot help it, but deny the other. Religion in its nature is voluntary, and ceases 
 to be religion in proportion as it is forced. God desires free worshippers and hates 
 hypocrites."— Schaff, "Theological Propaedeutic," p. 470. 
 
320 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 out history. The fact that religion in its primitive form was to such 
 an extent a social function, pertaining to family, tribal, and even na- 
 tional life, has led to the assumption on the part of the State, in its 
 various stages of development, of a large measure of control over the 
 religious life of its subjects. In the Roman Empire the supervision of 
 the religion of the people was made a matter of State policy on politi- 
 cal grounds. Bishop Creighton calls attention to the following lan- 
 guage of Plato upon this subject, which, he remarks, did not materially 
 differ from that of the Inquisitor : 
 
 " Let this, then, be the law : No one shall possess shrines of the 
 gods in private houses, and he who is found to possess them, and per- 
 form any sacred rites not publicly authorised, shall be informed against 
 to the guardians of the law ; and let them issue orders that he shall 
 carry his private rites to the public temples, and if he do not obey, let 
 them inflict a penalty until he comply. And if a person be proven 
 guilty of impiety, not merely from childish levity, but such as grown- 
 up men may be guilty of, let him be punished with death." ^ These 
 sentiments were representative in Roman history. 
 
 The theocracy of the Old Testament dispensation has been misin- 
 terpreted by some as sanctioning, and even enforcing, the exercise of 
 civil authority in the sphere of religion. Even the 
 Christianity rightly New Testament dispensation has been marked by 
 
 interpreted not perse- -.,,, .... . ^ 
 
 cuting in its spirit. most fnghtful and miquitous misuse, not only of 
 civil, but ecclesiastical, power to subdue the con- 
 sciences of men and annihilate all religious freedom. That this has been 
 the result of a distorted conception of Christianity and a gross abuse of 
 authority has been shown by Bishop Creighton, in opposition to the view 
 advocated by Mr. Lecky, that Christianity sanctions and is in large mea- 
 sure responsible for this spirit.^ A new era of religious liberty has come, 
 
 1 Quoted in " Persecution and Tolerance," p. 7. 
 
 Dr. Merivale, in his " Boyle Lectures," expresses a similar opinion; 
 
 " Undoubtedly various feelings entered into the demand for the persecution of 
 the Christians. The magistrate regarded them as transgressors of a principle in 
 public law, as evil-doers, as fosterers of treason and sedition, and was disposed to 
 punish them accordingly. But the people generally, and sometimes the rulers them- 
 selves, yielded to a superstitious impulse in ascribing to their rejection of sacrifice 
 and of idol-worship every public calamity, which testified, as they supposed, to the 
 wrath of the offended deities. The execution of the Christians was thus popularly 
 regarded as a means of propitiation."— New York ed., 1865, p. 251, note. 
 
 2 Dr. Creighton sums up his conclusions on this subject as follows : 
 
 " (i) Persecution, or the infliction of punishment for erroneous opinions, was 
 contrary to the express teaching of Christ, and was alien to the spirit of Christianity ; 
 (2) was adopted by the Church from the system of the world when the Church 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 321 
 
 all too slowly, as the centuries have passed, and not without painful and 
 desperate struggles. The close of our present century finds only a 
 portion of mankind enjoying the rights, privileges, and consolations of 
 liberty of conscience. " This principle of religious freedom and sepa- 
 ration of Church and State,'' writes Dr. Schaff, " is slowly, but irresis- 
 tibly, making progress in Europe, and is becoming more and more an 
 essential part of modern civilization. It develops the power of self- 
 government, which is inherent in the Christian Church. It favors, 
 indeed, the multipUcation of sects, but honest division is preferable to 
 an enforced uniformity which breeds hypocrisy and infidelity. The 
 principle of liberty secures also the possibility of a reunion of Christen- 
 dom on the solid basis of freedom and voluntary consent." i 
 
 In the old Oriental empires, except as Western ideas have been 
 introduced and gained some ascendancy, the theory of State control 
 over the religious life of men still holds its place. 
 It is even supplemented and extended in practice Religious absolutism 
 
 _ -.,-,-.,,. , the prevailing temper 
 
 by the supposed right of the family, the clan, the of the Orient, 
 
 tribe, the sect, the village, or even the neighbor- 
 hood, to maintain an authoritative oversight of the religious life of 
 every member, and inflict exemplary penalties upon any one who de- 
 accepted the responsibility of maintaining order in the community ; (3) was really 
 exercised for political rather than religious ends ; (4) was always condemned by the 
 Christian conscience ; (5) was felt by those who used it to land them in contradic- 
 tions ; (6) neither originated in any misunderstanding of the Scriptures, nor was 
 removed by the progress of intellectual enlightenment ; but (7) disappeared because 
 the State became conscious that there was an adequate basis for the maintenance of 
 political society in those principles of right and wrong which were universally recog- 
 nised by its citizens, apart from their position or beliefs as members of any religious 
 organisation. 
 
 ' ' Such opinions differ materially from those which are generally current on this 
 subject. The origin of persecution is commonly found in the overwhelming claim 
 which Christianity makes on its adherents. Christianity, it is said, regards man's 
 life on earth as but the beginning of an eternal destiny, and asserts that eternity can 
 only bring happiness to those who are within the fold of the Church. Consequently 
 the maintenance of right opinion about religious matters is a point of primary im- 
 portance for human happiness, rightly understood, and ought in the interests of 
 mankind to be enforced even at the cost of immediate suffering to obdurate and mis- 
 guided individuals. This is doubtless a logical position and is warranted by the 
 language of the advocates of persecution. But a line of distinction must be drawn 
 between the motives which prompted to persecution and the arguments by which it 
 was defended when once it was undertaken. It is obvious that this reasoning was 
 the only one by which persecution could be defended, and it is equally obvious that 
 persecution needed a defence."—" Persecution and Tolerance," pp. 2-4. 
 
 Cf. Schaff, " Christ and Christianity," p. 283, for similar views. 
 
 I Ibid., p. 276-291. 
 
322 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 serts the common faith. The attitude of Islam towards apostasy is 
 well known. The penalty, even at the present hour, is death wherever 
 Mohammedan authorities have their own way, free from external re- 
 strictions. Other rehgions may be less bold and relentless, but the 
 spirit which prevails is not dissimilar, and logically carried out would 
 lead to the same result. It is only within the present generation that 
 the death-penalty has been lifted in Japan. The violent aggressiveness 
 of the persecuting spirit throughout the heathen world is hardly under- 
 stood in Christendom. That it exists with little theoretical abatement, 
 and is still marked by extreme cruelty in practice, is an undeniable 
 fact, although the spirit of Christian civilization exercises a certain 
 constraint, and the presence of the representatives of foreign govern- 
 ments is some check to its otherwise unrestrained fierceness. 
 
 In Turkey, Persia, North Africa, except Egypt and Algiers, and 
 generally throughout the Moslem world, except where the civil author- 
 ity is in the hands of Christian rulers, the old Islamic fanaticism is 
 in the ascendancy. No Moslem, unless imder very exceptional cir- 
 cumstances, dares to profess Christianity ; he knows that his doom 
 would be sealed. The story of Mirza Ibrahim, a recent mart)nr in 
 Persia, is typical of the hopelessness of escape where a Mohammedan 
 ventures to change his faith.i The terrible persecution of the Armeni- 
 ans, although perpetrated under the cover of political provocation, has 
 only illustrated the genuine historic temper of Islamic fanaticism. The 
 " noble army of martyrs " has received many accessions within the past 
 year or two at the hands of Mohammedan fiends, who, while honoring 
 their religion, as they suppose, have disgraced their humanity. Un- 
 happily, the spirit of persecution is by no means confined to the Moslem, 
 in contrast with the Christian, element in the Orient. The annals of 
 Protestantism, in its heroic struggles with the old hierarchies of Eastern 
 Christianity, reveal the possibilities of iniquitous persecution which lurk 
 in the misguided minds of the ecclesiastical authorities, and even the 
 laity, of the Oriental Christian sects. 
 
 In India a strong tendency to persecution is found among Hindus, 
 but it is revealed more in connection with the breaking of caste regu- 
 lations than in diversity of view in matters of dog- 
 The sceptre of caste matic belief. There is a disposition to tolerate 
 in India. liberty of thought among Hindus in the realm of 
 
 purely religious or philosophical conviction, while 
 any infraction of caste regulations is visited with the severest ostracism. 
 The English Government guarantees and is disposed to enforce reli- 
 1 Wilson, " Persian Life and Customs," p. 300. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 323 
 
 gious freedom, but it is difficult to reach other than notorious and 
 overt cases of persecution. Many complications, also, are apt to arise, 
 which increase the embarrassment of the civil power in taking cogni- 
 zance of religious matters among the people. 
 
 In China the spirit of persecution is not awakened by distinctively 
 religious motives so much as through the influence of political and 
 anti-foreign sentiment.^ It is true, however, that 
 converts to Christianity are often exposed to great xhe perils of Chinese 
 perils and severe trials, because the anti-foreign christians, 
 
 hostility is frequently turned in their direction, 
 since they are supposed to be the dupes and tools of foreigners. The 
 persecution is no less real than if it were prompted by exclusively re- 
 hgious zeal, and it is the fact of their being Christians which calls down 
 upon them these hostile and cruel attacks. " There is scarcely a man, 
 woman, or child," writes Dr. Henry, "among the forty-four hundred 
 Christians in Canton, who has not been exposed to reproach, calumny, 
 injustice, or physical violence because of his religion." ^ The anti- 
 foreign propaganda in China breaks out with renewed virulence from 
 time to time, and in siich seasons of mob violence the missionaries 
 themselves are exposed to dire peril,^ as has been so shockingly illus- 
 trated by the recent massacres. Native Chinese Christians at such 
 times are called upon to face the most desperate possibilities, but have 
 given remarkable evidence of their stability and fortitude. There is 
 the best possible reason for the insertion of the guarantee of religious lib- 
 erty in the treaties between China and all foreign powers, and although 
 China has conceded such liberty, it is not as yet guarded and enforced 
 as it should be. The history of missions in Formosa contains many 
 thrilling chapters of bloodthirsty persecution.* 
 
 The entrance of papal Christianity into Japan in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury was attended by the most frightful assaults and tortures in the 
 effort to exterminate its professors. In 1637 a terrible onslaught upon 
 
 1 " The spirit of the national life tends in the main to tolerance, persecution 
 usually arising from social or political causes. That which is new is opposed be- 
 cause it is novel or subversive of ancient ideas and practices, and leads to singularity, 
 not because it is regarded as false. The persecution which Christianity has met with 
 has been mainly due to fear of foreign domination, and has had its origin with the 
 literati and official class, who think that they see in it a danger to their own power. 
 It could be easily kept in check if the Government desired to do so."— Rev. Jonathan 
 Lees (L. M. S.), Tientsin, North China. 
 
 2 " The Cross and the Dragon," p. 357. 
 
 » Work and Workers in the Mission Field, February, 1896, p. 68. 
 * MacKay, " From Far Formosa." pp. in, 167, 191, 337. 
 
324 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the Christians resulted in the death of thirty thousand, who were buried 
 in the same grave, over which the following inscription was placed: 
 " So long as the sun shall warm the earth, let 
 The passing of perse- "o Christian be SO bold as to come to Japan." 
 cution in Japan. -pjjg acceptance of Christianity was made a cap- 
 ital offense, while in public places throughout 
 Japan, and even at cross-roads and bridges, were placed official in- 
 terdicts forbidding the profession of Christianity, under severe pen- 
 alties. These antichristian proclamations were not removed until 
 1873. Violent persecutions have taken place even within a few years, 
 but they have been local, and not under the patronage of the Govern- 
 ment. The new national Constitution of Japan, promulgated in 1889, 
 guarantees religious freedom.^ Barring the inevitable outbursts of the 
 reactionary spirit, which will probably be only local and temporary, 
 there seems to be every reason to anticipate that an era of religious 
 liberty has come to stay in Japan. In Korea the profession of Chris- 
 tianity is pretty sure to arouse a spirit of persecution, but on the part 
 of Government officials and priests rather than the common people. 
 The progress of Christianity in Africa has not been attended by 
 universal demonstrations of hostility, but as a rule African converts have 
 had to face severe trials. It was so in South 
 The martyrdoms Africa, and to somc extent upon the West Coast, 
 
 of Uganda and ,.,.,, 
 
 Madagascar. whilc m Uganda the memorable martyrdom of the 
 
 three lads who were tortured and burned by the 
 fierce and cruel Mujasi, the chief of the king's body-guards, in 1885, 
 has given a heroic setting to its earliest Christian records. Other hor- 
 rors soon followed, including the martyrdom of Bishop Hannington, 
 and the great persecution of 1886, under Mwanga.^ The story of the 
 repeated persecutions in Madagascar is well known, especially that of 
 1849. The Rev. James Sibree describes the precipice (or "place of 
 hurling ") from which so many Malagasy Christians were cast head- 
 long.* He names it the Tarpeian of Antananarivo. Upon this com- 
 
 1 " Religious tyranny was once severe in this land. Belief in a foreign faith was 
 even punishable with death. This is simply a fact of history. Then came a period 
 of silent toleration. This was finally followed by the Constitution of February 11, 
 1889, the Magna Charta of Japanese religious and civil liberty. It is proper now to 
 say that Government persecution on account of religion is wholly a thing of the past. 
 It would, however, be misleading to say that the profession of Christianity is no b-ir 
 to a man's happiness or social and civil progress in any community in Japan. Where 
 Buddhist influence prevails, a man must still suffer a silent persecution because of 
 his belief in Jesus."— Rev. David S. Spencer (M. E. M. S.), Nagoya, Japan. 
 
 2 Stock, " The Story of Uganda," p. 125. 
 
 * Sibree, " Madagascar before the Conquest," p. 36. 
 
'7 t. 
 
 < 
 
 a ^ 
 
 < . 
 
 o u 
 
 < 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NOK-CHRISTIAN WORLD 325 
 
 manding site was subsequently erected an imposing memorial church 
 in commemoration of the martyrs. 
 
 In South America, under Romish ecclesiastical auspices, there have 
 been bitter outbursts of persecuting zeal against Protestant missions. 
 In Colombia, in Brazil, in Peru and Chile, the 
 papal authorities have striven to subsidize the Outbursts of intoier- 
 
 . 1 J? 1 • • ance in South America 
 
 Government for their purposes, but of late a spmt and Mexico, 
 
 of political and religious freedom has, theoretically 
 at least, controlled the South American administrations, although from 
 time to time the Romish hierarchy are able to secure an ascendancy 
 which they are not slow to use. The ignorant and fanatical populace 
 are still largely under the influence of the priesthood. The same may 
 be said of Mexico, where the struggle for civil and political liberty has 
 been strenuous for over a generation. Many martyrdoms have oc- 
 curred among Protestant converts, but there are signs that liberal 
 sentiments are slowly gaining an ascendancy over the people, while 
 the Government seems intent upon enforcing its guarantee of freedom. 
 In many parts of the West Indies severe persecutions have occurred, 
 and in some of the islands, especially Haiti, liberty, religious and politi- 
 cal, is little more than a name. 
 
 5. Scandalous Lives of Religious Leaders.— The author is 
 not insensible to the responsibility involved in venturing upon a subject 
 of such delicate and searching import as the one 
 here introduced. The moral character of the reli- The import of the 
 gious guides of the non-Christian world is indeed theme, 
 
 a most distasteful theme, as disheartening and un- 
 inviting as it is painful. Its bearing upon the tone of public opinion 
 and upon the direction of social tendencies is, however, so patent and 
 weighty that it cannot be passed over unnoticed without ignoring one 
 of the gravest and most mischievous social evils of heathen communities. 
 The corrosive example of many of the moral leaders of the ethnic faiths 
 is a most deplorable and pernicious plague-spot in the social status of 
 non-Christian peoples. While this is true to an amazing extent, yet, 
 happily, there are exceptions which are all the more notable and wel- 
 come because of the dark background of their environment. There 
 always have been, and there are to-day, some spiritual guides who are 
 gentle and devout in spirit, humble, kindly, sympathetic, and inspired 
 with a desire to minister worthily, in the name of religion, to sorrowing 
 and confiding human hearts. All honor to such as are worthy to be 
 ranked in this class : they are noble illustrations of the power of con- 
 
326 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 science and of the possibility of triumph over an evil environment 
 to one who seeks heavenly succor. In some instances they reveal a 
 graciousness and sobriety of personal character which make them like 
 " a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn." We can- 
 not but hope that, in response to their prayers to God for help and 
 guidance, although He may have been but dimly revealed to their con- 
 sciousness, such influences of the Holy Spirit have been given as would 
 lead them into the sanctuary of communion with the living God, which 
 we believe to be ever open to humble, reverent, penitent, and spiritually 
 aspiring souls. Such men are not the ordinary product of their reli- 
 gious environment, and it is to be feared that they are comparatively 
 few in number. Another aspect of this subject which should be noted, 
 is that the existence of lax moral standards does not pertain to the re- 
 ligious hierarchies of heathenism alone, but to a lamentable extent is 
 characteristic of the ecclesiastical priesthood of all ranks in the unre- 
 formed Christian Churches of the Orient, as well as of Mexico and 
 Central and South America, although in this connection also there are, 
 happily, exceptions to the rule. 
 
 Iniquity in high places is an old stain upon the religious history of 
 heathenism. The gods themselves in the Greek and Roman pantheons 
 were morally vile. The temples were trysting-places of vice, whose 
 priests and keepers were guilty of the most abandoned sacrilege, while 
 the grossly depraved emperors of Rome were deified and worshipped.^ 
 A dark shadow of scandal rests also upon the moral character of many 
 medieval ecclesiastics. The influence of their example through a subtle 
 law of traditional heredity will, perhaps, explain in part at least the 
 laxity of the priesthood in certain of the corrupt Christian Churches of 
 the present age. 
 
 In the non-Christian world of to-day the same strange and wanton 
 characteristics are to be found in the lives of its religious leaders. In 
 
 Japan the moral standing of the Buddhist priest- 
 
 Morais of the hood may be inferred from the words of a Japa- 
 
 priesthood in Japan, ^gse priest in his " Farewell to tlie Buddhists," a 
 
 document issued by him on severing his connec- 
 tion quite recently with the Buddhist sect. He writes : " It is not a 
 rare thing to see men with shaven heads and attired in black garments 
 
 1 Quotations from original authorities will be found in Storrs, "The Divine 
 Origin of Christianity," pp. 385, 572. Cf. also Fisher, " The Beginnings of Chris- 
 tianity," chap, vi., on "The State of Morals in Ancient Heathen Society"; De 
 Pressens^, " The Ancient World and Christianity," American edition, book v., chap, 
 ii., pp. 419-466, on " The Pagan World at the Coming of Christ." 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 327 
 
 wandering about in prostitute quarters, or to find women living in 
 temples. My desire was to reform this state of things, but I have been 
 driven to the conclusion that there is no hope. The priests, from the 
 lowest to the highest, are listless. The religion has no rallying power 
 left, no inner life. The people have lost faith in it. Its end has come. 
 What will take its place in the future is Christianity. I say this with- 
 out doubt or hesitation." ^ 
 
 The Buddhist periodicals themselves have been discussing of late 
 the moral condition of their priesthood. The strictures have been 
 severe, and have dwelt almost invariably upon the subject of impurity. 
 A recent issue of The Japan Mail notes the numerous references from 
 month to month in the native religious press upon the subject of the 
 Buddhist priesthood. A prominent Buddhist paper takes note of three 
 special failings : first, idleness and inactivity ; second, immorality ; and 
 third, disloyalty to the faith. " The decay of morality is attributed to 
 the priesthood, who fail to check vice and to set an example of activity 
 in good works." ^ In an article on " Religious Thought in Japan," 
 published in TTie Japan Evangelist, February, 1896, the author, in the 
 section on Buddhism, writes as follows : " The immorality and cor- 
 ruption prevalent among the Buddhists have become matters of exten- 
 sive and severe comment on the part of the secular papers. The Jiji 
 Shimpo is especially sharp in its strictures. The charge is made that 
 even the high priests of the Shin sect keep concubines. Considering 
 the fact that the Shin sect is the sect of Reformed Buddhism, and the 
 leading Buddhist organization of the present, the charge is a very grave 
 one for Buddhism indeed." He then refers to the document entitled 
 " Farewell to the Buddhists," and in a somewhat lengthy quotation 
 from it we find the following paragraph : " Of the immoraUty of priests 
 it makes me blush to speak." ^ The Nation's Friend published an arti- 
 
 1 Quoted in The Independent, January 14, 1897, p. 14. 
 
 2 The Missionary Herald, March, 1893, P- ^^• 
 
 3 " In a recent number of the Fukuin Shimpo, for example, the publication of 
 the fact that the late chief high priest of the Hongwanji had several concubines as 
 well as a lawful wife, and a son by a concubine, leads a writer to lament his country's 
 lot. He knows that such things are common in small villages and among ordinary 
 monks, but here was the great pope of Japan, the so-called living Hotoke, or divine 
 incarnation, given to this life. What can be said? In one sense the Hongwanji is 
 merely a temple, and its pope is but a priest ; but the influence of this temple per- 
 vades the nation, and its pope does much to shape the national development. Such 
 things are poison to Japan, the traitor of the State, the sword of Satan. They are 
 of profound importance to our welfare now and for the future. In the Shukyo, a 
 writer on ' National Reformation ' bewails his nation's corruption. Those in whose 
 care the moral life of the people lies are themselves immoral. Upper as well as lower 
 
328 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 cle entitled "The Good and Evil Effects of Buddhism on History," 
 which was translated by Mr. H. Kannari, and appears in The Japan 
 Evangelist for October, 1893. The first paragraph of the article is as 
 follows : " The priests are more zealous in financial matters or in law- 
 suits than the laymen. They are busy with envy and strife by day and 
 by night. In their houses fornication is common. The idols of the 
 saints are guarded by those who are inferior to prostitutes. There is 
 a chief of a section of Buddhist temples who makes a large sum of 
 money or a fortune by ostensibly engaging in public works. There is 
 one who offers the harlot on the one hand, and on the other the priest 
 who receives her with pleasure. Who can say that such priests and 
 morality can save the nation of Japan? The corruption of Buddhism 
 is, it can be said, at its worst." 
 
 In May, 1895, the Japanese Minister of Home Affairs issued a doc- 
 ument containing instructions and warnings to the Shinto and Bud- 
 dhist priests of the empire. The paper is a sig- 
 The Japanese Govern- nificant One, and contains plain intimations that 
 offlcui warning. the ignorance and immorality of the priesthood 
 call loudly for reformation.^ A native writer, the 
 Rev. K. Y. Fujiu, in "A Review of the Year 1895," referring to this 
 action by the Home Minister, remarks : " This act occasioned not a 
 little commotion among them. Moreover, severe attacks by leading 
 newspapers upon some Buddhist sects on account of moral abuses 
 showed the attitude of popular religious feeling and the needs of the 
 
 classes are tainted. Private utility is pursued through the sacrifice of public good 
 Vices of the lowest and meanest kinds are common. The Land of the Rising Sun 
 is in a dense cloud of falsehood. The light of conscience is fading away. A fun- 
 damental reformation is needed. Improvement in politics or social customs will not 
 bring about this needed change. Individual regeneration is a necessity, and to this 
 end the regeneration of young men is the ground of hope. The destiny of Japan lies 
 in the character of its youth." — Quoted in The Baptist Missionary Magazine, Sep- 
 tember, 1894, p. 461. 
 
 1 The following paragraph is taken from the document referred to : 
 " Priests of either Shinto or Buddhist sects, charged as they are with the grave 
 duty of propagating religious doctrines, ought to combine both learning and virtue, 
 so as to command the respect of the people. Hence the processes pursued for test- 
 ing their qualifications should be specially scrupulous and exact, everything savouring 
 of partiality being carefully avoided. It is nevertheless commonly reported of the 
 priests now in holy orders that not a few are distinguished neither by learning nor 
 by virtuous conduct, and entirely unfitted for their posts. Not only do these defects 
 disqualify them to discharge their duties, but the evil also tends to bring about the 
 decline of religious tenets and of general morality, even to the extent of causing the 
 decay of sects and encouraging the spread of false ideas throughout the country."— 
 Quoted in The Japan Evangelist^ October, 1895, p. 43, 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 329 
 
 time. But we regret to see not only that these attacks and admonitions 
 went unheeded, but that the moral condition of the priests is getting 
 worse and worse." ^ 
 
 The Rev. J. H. De Forest, D.D., in an article on " The Japan of 
 1896 — Religiously," writes as follows concerning the aftermath which 
 followed the demise of a leading priest of the Shin sect : " When the 
 head of the Shin sect in Kyoto died, three years ago, many papers 
 were merciless in exposing his harem arrangements. His successor is 
 now being attacked on the same line by some of the ablest papers in 
 the land. The chief priest is accused of extreme extravagance and 
 sensuality, and it is to the glory of Buddhism that a large revolt is in 
 progress against the shameless immoralities of this great temple. There 
 is a demand among Buddhists for purity of life on the part of the 
 priests." ^ In the capital of Korea Buddhist priests are practically 
 ostracized, as they are not allowed to reside within the walls.^ The 
 common explanation of this banishment is their evil character. Writers 
 upon Korea characterize the " bonzes," or monks, as lazy and depraved.* 
 
 The popular estimate of the religious leaders in China is emphati- 
 cally to their discredit. Their moral character is too well known to 
 command respect. They are almost universally 
 subjects of open ridicule or hardly concealed con- character of reUgious 
 tempt. In an estimate of Buddhism by Mr. Ball, leaders in china, 
 in "Things Chinese," the statement is made that 
 " its priests are ignorant, low, and immoral, addicted to opium, despised 
 by the people, held up to contempt and ridicule, and the gibe and joke 
 
 1 The Japan Evangelist, February, 1896, p. 154. Cf. also similar articles in 
 ibid., June, 1896, pp. 280, 300. 
 
 2 The Independent, January 14, 1897, P- I4- 
 
 5 Curzon, "Problems of the Far East," p. no; Savage-Landor, " Corea,'' 
 p. 217; Gilmore, " Korea from its Capital," p. 188. 
 
 * " By lovers of the picturesque nothing more enchanting than these monastic 
 retreats can anywhere be found ; nor will the discovery that, while every prospect 
 pleases, man alone is vile — even though his depravity assume, as is credibly alleged 
 of the Korean bonzes, the most profligate expression, or, as it did in my own ex- 
 perience, the more modest form of larceny on one's personal effects — deter the 
 traveller from keen appreciation of surroundings so romantic."— Curzon, " Problems 
 of the Far East," p. 104. 
 
 " More interesting to me than the temples and buildings were the bonzes, who 
 are, I may as well say at once, a very depraved lot. . . . Morals they have none ; 
 if it were possible, one might say even less than none. They lead a lazy and vicious 
 life in these monasteries, gambling among themselves, and spending much time in 
 orgies. They feed themselves well at the expense of the charitable, and a great deal of 
 their energy is expended in blackmailing rich persons, not of course openly, but through 
 agents as disreputable as themselves."— Savage-Landor, " Corea," pp. 227, 228. 
 
330 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of the populace. The nuns likewise hold a very low position in the 
 public estimation."! "They are opium-smokers almost to a man," 
 says Dr. Henry, referring to the priests, " and are held in but little es- 
 teem by the people. To be called a Wo-sheung, or priest, is a term 
 expressive of contempt at one's stupidity and general worthlessness." 2 
 Mr. Henry Norman, in his recent volume, gives an account of a nar- 
 row escape which he had from robbery and personal violence at the 
 hands of Buddhist monks at a temple on the outskirts of Peking, whom 
 he describes as " a set of as thorough-paced blackguards as could be 
 imagined: filthy, vermin-covered, bloated, scrofulous, and with the 
 marks of nameless vices stamped clearly on many of their faces.'' He 
 congratulated himself on escaping with his Hfe.^ Dr. Martin, in refer- 
 ring to the same temple, remarks : " Here twelve hundred lazy monks, 
 filthy and vicious, are housed in the palace of a prince, who, on com- 
 ing to the throne, gave them his dwelling and ordered them to be fed 
 at his expense. So greedy are these recluses, whose first law is self- 
 abnegation, and so indelicate is their mode of picking pockets, that a 
 visitor always departed with the conviction that instead of visiting a 
 house of prayer he had fallen into a den of thieves."* He refers in 
 another connection to monks in general as follows : " Theoretically 
 contemplative, pious, and virtuous, as a matter of fact most of these 
 bonzes, or monks, are lazy, ignorant, and immoral. As such they are 
 unsparingly satirized in Chinese popular literature." ^ The Rev. J. R. 
 Graham, a missionary of the American Presbyterian Chiuch (South), 
 in an article on "The Character of Buddhist Priests," refers to the 
 popular estimate concerning them in China as follows : " The Chinese, 
 almost to a man, know how utterly depraved nine out of ten of the 
 priests are." And again : " The priests are notoriously immoral and 
 corrupt, opium-eaters and gamblers."^ In an article by Dr. Arthur 
 Neve, of Kashmir, on "The Unevangelized Countries of Asia," the 
 priesthood of Tibet is described as follows: "The Dulai Llama, who 
 is head of the hierarchy, rules the country and receives the abject wor- 
 ship of the people. He is supported by tens of thousands of monks, 
 recruited from the people and living on them— a parasitic growth which 
 
 1 Ball, "Things Chinese," second edition, p. 70. Cf. also Douglas, "Society 
 in China," pp. 119, 412, and " Report of the London Missionary Conference of 
 1888," vol. i., p. 66. 
 
 2 Henry, " The Cross and the Dragon," p. 91. 
 
 8 " The Peoples and Politics of the Far East," pp. 205-209. 
 
 * " A Cycle of Cathay," p. 244. 
 ' Ibid., p. 227. 
 
 • The Missionary, June, 1895, p, 274. 
 

 i-^'Sl'-i'- 
 
 ,/V, 
 
Types of Indian Devotees. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 331 
 
 crushes all freedom of thought or action, and under the guise of asceti- 
 cism encourages the vilest immorality. Nothing short of a military 
 occupation of Lhassa itself by British troops would avail to deliver the 
 country from their yoke. And even in Ladak the power of the Llamas 
 exercises a most baheful influence." ^ 
 
 In India there has been of late much criticism on the part of intel- 
 ligent natives of the moral standing of their religious leaders. Accord- 
 ing to The Indian Witness, as stated in a recent 
 number of The Christian Patriot of Madras, The moral standing of 
 " There is at present a conspiracy of utterance *•" Hindu priesthood, 
 on the part of Indian journalists to draw attention 
 to the utterly indefensible and worthless character of the Hindu priest- 
 hood ."^ Of the Siva ascetics it is said, in a volume on "ReUgious 
 Reform," published at Madras, that they " are some of the worst men 
 in India." ^ In their persons they are filthy and disgusting, which is 
 to them, however, a clear indication of sanctity. They live upon the 
 bounty of others, in absolute idleness, no small percentage of the earn- 
 ings of industrious India going to support them in their debasing sloth. 
 The fakirs and devotees are among the most revolting spectacles of 
 humanity to be found anywhere ; yet their power over Hindus is start- 
 ling. They have been called " the captains-general of Hinduism " by 
 a native authority.* Their shocking ascetic practices seem to exert a 
 strange spell over the imagination. Perhaps this is owing in great mea- 
 sure to fear of their curses, which they are ready to distribute broadcast 
 upon slight provocation.^ 
 
 1 The Church Missionary Intelligencer, May, 1895, p. 348. Cf. also Schneider, 
 " Working and Waiting for Tibet," p. 39. 
 
 2 The following extract is all the more significant from the fact that it is found in 
 an influential Hindu journal : 
 
 " In countries and in religions where there is a certain standard of character in- 
 sisted upon and exacted from those who are ordained as priests, life offers a basis of 
 agreement even with those whose notions may be diametrically opposed to those of 
 the priestly class. But here, what is the standard of character one expects in a 
 priest? None, absolutely none. So far from the priests having to mend our lives, 
 we have to mend them first or end them. To tell them to regard the notions which 
 contribute to their livelihood as secondary, and to drive at practices which are in- 
 jurious or dishonest, is to tell them to hang themselves. No doubt there should be 
 exceptions even among our priests, but this admission is more a matter of logical 
 necessity with us than of actual experience." — Quoted in The Christian Patriot, De- 
 cember 10, 1896. 
 
 3 " Popular Hinduism," p. 33. 
 
 * Stewart, " Life and Work in India," p. 205. 
 
 5 " The reverence of the common Hindus for all classes of devotees is very 
 
332 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The example which these fakirs set is evil in its influence upon 
 Hindu society, although their reputed sanctity is rarely, if ever, ques- 
 tioned. " In the Punjab," writes the Rev. R. M. 
 The priest, the Paterson, of Guirat, "a fakir is thought to be 
 
 guru, the mohtint, and .,, , ,,, »tt-ii 
 
 the fakir. entirely free to do as he desires. Nothing he does 
 
 is considered a sin. No one dares proceed against 
 him in the law courts, as all are afraid of his curse." A single fakir in 
 an Indian village may be guilty of the most impudent and atrocious 
 crimes, and yet no one would dare to witness in a court of law against 
 him. " He would send us to hell by his curse," is their deprecating 
 answer to any suggestion of legal prosecution. The guru, who seems 
 to be the executive of the Hindu religion, who is the intermediary in 
 the initiation of the young into the pale of Hinduism, and whose hand 
 places the sacred thread, the sign of being "twice-born," upon the 
 novitiate, has the same mischievous dominion over the Hindu mind. 
 " Both the guru and the priest," writes a native Hindu, " vie with each 
 other in ignorance and conceit. Both are covetous, unprincipled, and 
 up to every vice, but the guru is much more revered than his adversary, 
 owing to the speculative and mysterious nature of his avocations, and 
 to the fact that he is a less frequent visitor. The guru's sway over the 
 family is complete." i The enlightened Indian press speaks in no uncer- 
 tain tone as to the personal characteristics of the priesthood. 7^e Hindu 
 Patriot refers to this section of society in the following terms : " Pro- 
 foundly ignorant as a class, and infinitely seliish, it is the mainstay of 
 every unholy, immoral, and cruel custom and superstition in our midst, 
 from the wretched dancing-girl, who insults the Deity by her existence, 
 to the pining child-widow, whose every tear and every hair of her head 
 
 great. A man with a shriveled arm held erect is an object of constant adoration as 
 he walks along the road. Large numbers prostrate themselves at his feet, and that 
 man would be daring indeed who hesitated a moment in obeying any command he 
 might receive from such a saint. This power over the multitude would be a dan- 
 gerous weapon in the hands of better men than the devotees ; but when it is stated 
 that large numbers of these fellows are the veriest scoundrels that walk the earth, 
 the reader can well understand how much oppression they can practise without en- 
 dangering themselves in any way. In former years they were undisguised tyrants ; 
 but for many years past the Indian Government has ceased to pay them any def- 
 erence whatever. If one of the most sacred of these men violates the law of the 
 land, he is punished precisely as another man ; and this has done much, not only to 
 protect the people, but to break the spell which enabled the devotee through long 
 ages to oppress them with impunity."— Thoburn, " India and Malaysia," pp. 130, 
 131. Cf. also an article on " Hindu Devotees," by the Rev. T. H. Whitamore, in 
 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, August, 1893, p. 320. 
 I Quoted in Wilkins, " Modern Hinduism," p. 30. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 333 
 
 shall stand up against every one of us who tolerate it on the Day of 
 Judgment. And of such a priestly class oxu' women are the ignorant 
 tools and helpless dupes." i 
 
 Associated with the most sacred services of Hindu temples and 
 shrines are moral atrocities with which the religious guides of the peo- 
 ple are often prominently identified. The mohunt, who is usually the 
 keeper and guardian of an Indian shrine, seems to have absolute con- 
 trol of all funds contributed as votive offerings. He has therefore at 
 his command immense sums of money, which he is free to use in 
 accordance with his own desires, and almost resistless influence over the 
 minds of visitors,^ Hindu pilgrimages to sacred places have certain 
 dark aspects, concerning which there is coming to be much frank and 
 outspoken discussion in the best journals of India. A recent issue 
 of The Bombay Guardian refers to Bindraban, one of the sacred cities 
 of the Hindus in North India. It is full of temples and priests, and 
 
 1 Quoted in The Baptist Missionary Magazine, September, 1895, p. 503. 
 
 2 " Babu Jogendra Nath Niyogi, B.A., in an able letter to The Indian Daily 
 News of September 25, 1894, states the facts of the case as regards Bengal clearly, 
 in these words : 
 
 " ' There are three principal shrines in Bengal, viz., at Tarkheswar, Baidynath, 
 and Kalighat. The first is under the management of a mohunt, the second under a 
 high priest, and the third under persons known as haldars. These shrines yield very 
 large incomes, which are entirely at the disposal of the persons referred to. These 
 persons are not bound to give any account of the money to anybody. It is not to be 
 wondered at, then, that vast sums should be squandered and dissipated. The term 
 "mohunt" means a person who, being in charge of shrines, should, among other 
 conditions, remain a bachelor and lead a strictly pure and ascetic life. It is in the 
 very nature of things that, with vast sums of money at their disposal to do them 
 yeoman's service in case of emergency, they should pass their lives in constant plots, 
 intrigues, and excesses. It has been asserted by your vernacular contemporary, 
 The Hitabadi, that no women of attractive appearance, unless accompanied by strong 
 male guardians, can leave the precincts of these places without carrying away with 
 them a sense of pollution. Among the Hindus it is considered an act of piety to see 
 in person the priests at these shrines.' "—Quoted in The Indian Evangelical Review, 
 October, 1894, p. 255. 
 
 Mr. Bhattacharya, in his learned volume, remarks : " When a shrine is in the 
 struggling stage, the high priest generally leads a pure life and spends a large part 
 of his income in feeding the poor pilgrims. But the high priests of the temples that 
 have a well-established character for sanctity are usually just the kind of men that 
 they ought not to be. There are just five stages in the careers of the successful 
 monks and nuns : first, the beggar ; then the charlatan ; then the temple promoter ; 
 then the princely high priest ; and the last of all the debauchee. The theme is one 
 to which justice could be done only by the genius of a Shakespeare."—" Hindu 
 Castes and Sects," p. 362. Cf. also article on " Hinduism as It Is," by the Rev. 
 J. P. Haythornthwaite, in The Church Missionary Intelligencer, August, 1896. 
 
334 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 is especially a resort of Hindu widows. Few of these escape the moral 
 contamination of the place. ^ 
 
 The morahty of Buddhist monks in India is certainly not in ad- 
 vance of that of the average Hindu priest. Dr. J. Bowles Daly, editor 
 of TTie Indian World, in a recent report presented 
 The secrets of j-g (-jje Government by him as a commissioner 
 
 Buddhist monasteries , i -r i* .^ 
 
 in Ceylon. appomted by the Indian Government to examine 
 
 into the working of the " Buddhist Temporalities 
 Ordinance," makes some stinging criticisms of the moral status of the 
 Buddhist priesthood in Ceylon. Dr. Daly, it may be remarked, is 
 strongly pro-Buddhist in his sympathies, and does not conceal his ad- 
 miration for Buddhism as a religious system. In his report he claims 
 to have visited in four years about thirteen hundred of the pansalas, or 
 monasteries, and therefore bases his remarks upon extensive personal 
 observation. Concerning this report, the Rev. J. Ireland Jones, who 
 occupies the position of the James Long Lecturer on Buddhism, ex- 
 presses the following judgment in a recent issue of The Church Mis- 
 sionary Intelligencer: " His Report to Government, which lies before 
 me, is a very remarkable document; no more striking commentary 
 could have been written on the morality of Buddhism from its practi- 
 cal side. No writer with whom I am acquainted has drawn a darker 
 picture of the Buddhist priesthood as a whole, or has been more 
 severe in denunciation of their dishonesty, untruthfulness, and general 
 depravity. Not only, in the opinion of this candid Buddhist, does 
 ' brutal stagnation of mind prevail in the monasteries ' ; language seems 
 hardly strong enough to describe the corruption existing on every side. 
 Of one pansala his report is : ' Its funds are mismanaged, and a system 
 of wholesale fraud is being perpetrated.' Of another he says: 'This 
 temple is scandalously mismanaged; its monks, four in number, are 
 idle and depraved.' A third temple had 'procured for itself a terrible 
 notoriety ' through the use of poison for the removal of troublesome 
 claimants of its property. And these are but specimens. Other por- 
 tions of the Report are more gross still, and refer to abominations which 
 forbid mention." ^ 
 
 In Mohammedan lands religious leadership reflects the spiritual 
 temper and the moral standards of Islam. The intense legaUsm of the 
 Islamic code is nowhere more strikingly illustrated than in the charac- 
 teristic perfunctoriness of its religious officials. The imam, the mufti, 
 and the kadi are not, as a rule, models to be imitated. Their offi- 
 
 1 See TAe Sentinel, March, 1896, p. 34. 
 
 ' TAe Church Missionary Intelligencer, August, 1895, p. 576. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 335 
 
 cial life, both in its governing principles and its dubious practices, 
 will need considerable reconstruction before it can be regarded as 
 uplifting or helpful in the direction either of 
 political or social righteousness. The numerous ''''•'e *»»«»». the m«^», the 
 
 , , . , , . , , fcacZi, the mullah, and 
 
 orders of fakirs and dervishes, those weird and the dervish, 
 
 fantastic mystics of the Orient, with their frenzied 
 utterances, their exhausting ecstasies, their whirling zikrs, and their 
 endless iteration of titles and texts to the music of their rosaries, can 
 hardly be said to contribute to either the moral or the material well- 
 being of society. 
 
 In Persia the Mohammedan clergy, or mullahs, and the dervishes, 
 are sorry specimens of religious guides. Concerning the latter we 
 have the testimony of Mrs. Bishop, in a recent account of her jour- 
 neys in Persia and Kurdistan. "They are the 'mendicant friars' of 
 Persia," she writes, "and are under vows of poverty. Some are said 
 to be learned, but they object to discussing religious matters with infi- 
 dels, and almost nothing is known as to their beliefs. They hold uni- 
 versally the sanctity of idleness, and the duty of being supported by 
 the community. The lower classes hold them in reverence, and the 
 upper, though they are apt to loathe them, treat them with great re- 
 spect, for fear of laying themselves open to the charge of laxity in re- 
 ligious matters. Many of them deal in charms, and are consulted as 
 astrologers. Some are professed tellers of stories, to which, I am told, 
 no European could degrade himself by Kstening, but which are most 
 palatable to a village audience. . . . They are credited with many 
 vices, among the least of which are hazy ideas as to mine and thine, 
 opium and bhang smoking to excess, and drunkenness." ^ As regards 
 the mullahs, it is interesting to note that one of the strongest counts in 
 the indictment of Mirza AU Mohammed against the Mohammedanism 
 of his day was the scandalous vices of the Moslem clergy and their un- 
 fitness to be the spiritual guides of the people. This religious reformer 
 is better known as "The Bab," the founder of the Babi religion, a re- 
 cent revolt from Mohammedanism in Persia.^ His strictures, as re- 
 corded in "The Tarikh-I-Jadid ; or, The New History of the Bab," 
 translated by Mr. Edward G. Browne, are many and unequivocal, and 
 they are significant as coming from a native source, with every oppor- 
 tunity to possess an inside knowledge of facts. The history contains 
 repeated denunciations of the selfishness, hypocrisy, venality, and de- 
 
 1 "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," vol. i., p. 237. 
 
 2 Cf. article by the Rev. Benjamin Labaree, D.D., on " The Babi Religion in 
 Persia," in The Church at Home and Abroad, October, 1893, p. 296. 
 
336 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 based personal character of the Persian mullahs. It calls attention to the 
 fact that they have had no proper education for their religious responsibil- 
 ities, and that they grossly misuse their power for unworthy purposes.i 
 The Mohammedan shrines of Persia, especially that of Imam Riza 
 of Meshed, are notorious for immorality. " The shrine of Imam Riza," 
 writes a recent visitor, " is the great centre round which everything in 
 Meshed swings, but under cover of its protection or service the grossest 
 forms of sin prevail, while traffic in women for the convenience of 
 pilgrims is a business so closely connected with the shrine as to be in- 
 separable from it. A thousand men are employed in its service. It 
 
 1 A single paragraph from " The Tarikh-I-Jadid " will suffice : 
 " So heedless are they [the Persian people] that they do not perceive that most 
 of these divines originally spring from the rustic population or the scum of the towns. 
 They enter our cities and colleges with a smock and a staff, and feet full of sores 
 encased in coarse socks and canvas shoes. There, by the alms and votive offerings 
 of the people, by begging from this one and that one, by prayers and fastings paid 
 for at the rate of two tumans a year, by reading through the whole Kuran for a kran, 
 and by fees obtained for the performance of devotions, they manage to live in extreme 
 wretchedness and poverty. After reading a few books, learning Arabic, filling their 
 minds with all manner of doubts, hesitations, and vain scruples, and developing their 
 obsolete superstitions and prejudices, they leave college, take their seats in the chair 
 of the Law and the Imamate, and forthwith become the absolute arbiters and lawgivers 
 of the nation, the controllers of all men's lands and possessions, the owners of horses, 
 mules, gold, and silver. They then think themselves entitled to set their feet on the 
 necks of all mankind, to lord it over the noble, to maintain troops of horses and 
 retinues of servants, to claim to be the vicegerents of the Imam, to receive his tithesi 
 and to make atonements for wrongs. They account themselves the most noble 
 amongst all creatures, and the most perfect, the generality of men as ' like cattle,' 
 and the common folk as ' even more astray.' They become dead men's heirs, con- 
 sumers of endowments, and collectors of tithes and ' thirds,' and usurp the station 
 of ' the One, the Dominant,' ' to whom belongeth dominion.' 
 
 " Most people, however, have not sufficient sense to perceive from what sources 
 all these luxuries, powers, shops, villages, lands, aqueducts, possessions, and 
 moneys which the clergy possess are derived. Have they skill in working mines ? 
 No. Do they traffic in the merchandise of India, China, America, or Europe? No. 
 Do they traverse land and sea, or cultivate fields which lie waste? No. Have they 
 amassed their wealth by the discovery of new arts? No. This luxury and opulence 
 result, as all, wise or simple, may plainly see, from the plunder of rich and poor, 
 from payments for legal decisions, written or pronounced, from the profits of writ- 
 ing, ' I decree this,' or saying, ' I am witness to this,' and ' It is thus and thus,' and 
 from the hire obtained for the use of their honourable seals. Such being the case, 
 what folly it is to take as guides men so notoriously evil and hypocritical, to follow 
 their opinions, to be governed by their decisions, to cringe to them, flatter them, 
 beseech their favour, and reckon them, forsooth, as the repositories of learning!"— 
 Browne, "The Tarikh-I-Jadid; or. The New History of the Bab," pp. 184, 185. 
 See also Hid., pp. 77, 189. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 337 
 
 has an annual income estimated by different authorities to be equal to 
 _;^i 2,000 in money and 3000 tons in wheat as a minimum, up to 
 j£'] 2,000 and 12,000 tons as a maximum, amount. Instead of being 
 a ' house of prayer ' it is literally a " den of thieves.' " 
 
 It is not necessary to dwell upon this theme in connection with the 
 religious leadership of Africa and the South Sea Islands, where the 
 guardians of the spiritual welfare of the people seem to be examples of 
 ignorance and pride, and the masters of every art and device of super- 
 stition. They have apparently entered into partnership with the demons 
 they claim to control, to exert a malign influence over human hearts. 
 
 In South America, Central America, and Mexico the religious guides 
 of the people cannot be said to exemplify the morality which Chris- 
 tianity requires. On the contrary, there is much 
 that is gross and lamentable in their lives. In Religious guides in 
 
 ^1 "1 J • e South America, Central 
 
 Brazil, Peru, and Chile, and, m fact, pretty gener- America, and Mexico, 
 ally throughout Central and South America, the 
 immorahty of the clergy is notorious and undisguised.^ This statement 
 is not based simply upon the testimony of Protestant missionaries. In 
 1867 there was published in Paris the report of Ahh6 Emanuel Dome- 
 nech, Chaplain of the French Expeditionary Force who represented 
 Napoleon III. at the time of the failure of the French intervention 
 which ended in the death of Maximilian. This Roman Catholic prelate 
 was charged with a special mission to ascertain the true moral and re- 
 ligious condition of the clergy and Church of Rome in Mexico. He 
 
 1 ' ' Romanism in Europe and in the United States is manifestly far in advance 
 of anything ever beheld here. There we see something good in that Church. Here 
 the good has been reduced to such a minimum that one scarcely ever beholds any- 
 thing but weakness and wickedness. There the priests, as a rule, keep up the ap- 
 pearance of Christian perfection, preserving their characters, as much as possible, 
 blameless and above reproach. Here it is nothing for them to be openly immoral." — 
 See article entitled " Peru as a Mission Field," in TAe Gospel in all Lands, Janu- 
 ary, 1896, p. g. 
 
 " The character of the religious teachers of any people is a fair index to the 
 general moral condition of the masses who receive their instructions. The priest- 
 hood of Mexico has a few names that are untarnished in their reputation for virtue, 
 but in the vast majority there is not as great an ' odor of sanctity,' outside of the 
 pulpit, as would befit the ministers of Christ. Many are so notoriously drunken, 
 profane, and lecherous that they are a positive scandal to a society that is itself 
 thoroughly honeycombed by vice and impurity. These men are never expelled from 
 the ministry for their outrageous lives, but are simply changed from one parish to 
 another when their vices or crimes become unbearable." — See article on " The Re- 
 ligious and Moral Condition of Mexico," by the Rev. Samuel P. Craver, in The 
 Gospel in all Lands, March, 1894, p. lOO. 
 
 Cf. also The Missionary Review of the World, March, 1895, pp. 198-202' 
 
338 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 made a tour of personal observation, and published his report after his 
 return to France, giving it the title of " Mexico as It Is : The Truth 
 Respecting the Climate, its Inhabitants, and its Government." The 
 document is a scathing arraignment of the Church and its clergy. We 
 have here to do simply with what he had to say with reference to the 
 priesthood, although the entire report is a weighty indictment against 
 Romanism as it appears in Mexico.^ The Abb^ has said in plain words 
 all that we have hinted at in this paragraph. Coming from such a 
 source, the testimony, under the circumstances, is convincing, and is so 
 explicit that it requires no confirmation from Protestant writings. It is 
 quoted by Mr. Butler from a volume entitled " Mexico and the United 
 States," by Gorham D. Abbot.^ 
 
 1 For further information upon the contents of the report consult Butler, " Mex- 
 ico in Transition,'' pp. 27-34, and The Missionary Review of the World, March, 1896, 
 p. 177, article by Mr. Robert E. Speer, on " Mexico: Her Needs and Our Duty." 
 
 2 The Abb^ writes as follows : 
 
 " I say that Mexico is not a Catholic country: (i) Because a majority of the 
 native population are semi-idolaters, (a) Because the majority of the Mexicans 
 carry ignorance of religion to such a, point that they have no other worship than 
 that of form. It is materialism without a doubt. They do not know what it is 
 to worship God in spirit and in truth, according to the Gospel. ... If the 
 pope should abolish all simoniacal livings, and excommunicate all the priests hav- 
 ing concubines, the Mexican clergy would be reduced to a very small affair. 
 Nevertheless, there are some worthy men among them, whose conduct as priests 
 is irreproachable. ... In all Spanish America there are found among the 
 priests the veriest wretches— knaves deserving the gallows— men who make an in- 
 famous traffic of religion. Mexico has her share of these wretches. . . . 
 
 " The clergy carry their love of the family to that of paternity. In my travels in 
 the interior of Mexico, many pastors have refused me hospitality in order to prevent 
 my seeing their nieces and cousins and their children. It is difficult to determine the 
 character of these connections. Priests who are recognized as fathers of families are 
 by no means rare. The people consider it natural enough, and do not rail at the 
 conduct of their pastors, excepting when they are not contented with one wife. . . . 
 I remember that, one of these prelates passing through a village near the episcopal 
 city, the priest said to him, 'Sire, have the goodness to bless my children and 
 their mother.' The good bishop blessed them. There was a chamberful. 
 Another did better still. He baptized the child of one of his priests. Can a clergy 
 of such character make saints? I doubt. Nevertheless, they must not be taken for 
 heretics. . . . 
 
 " They make merchandise of the sacraments, and make money by every religious 
 ceremony, without thinking that they are guilty of simony and expose themselves to 
 the censures of the Church. If Roman justice had its course in Mexico, one half of 
 the Mexican clergy would be excommunicated. . . . The well-instructed priests, 
 disinterested and animated by a truly apostolical spirit, holy souls whose religious 
 sentiments are of good character, constitute an insignificant minority." — Quoted in 
 Butler, " Mexico in Transition," pp. 32, 33. 
 
THE SOCIAL EVILS OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN WORLD 339 
 
 Is it not evident, from this hasty and imperfect sketch of the moral sta- 
 tus of the rehgious leaders of the non-Christian, and also of some sections 
 of the Christian, world, that we have here a sadly suggestive brief as to 
 the desperate needs of social reconstruction from the top to the bottom? 
 
 And now this long and dreary, yet needful, review of the evils of 
 heathen society may be closed. Something more than a mere enumer- 
 ation of its characteristic defects seemed necessary, for the sake of 
 comprehensive and concise information, as well as to give emphasis to 
 the call for Christian reconstruction. It was desirable that the treat- 
 ment should be sufficiently in detail, and that it should be based upon 
 authentic testimony. I have endeavored to substantiate facts, and 
 have in most instances indicated authorities. Many more might have 
 been given for almost every important statement made. I have written 
 nothing which I do not beUeve to be true, upon satisfactory evidence. 
 In connection with certain aspects of the subject I have not been able 
 to print some incidents and details which have been given me in the 
 freedom of private correspondence. In others, information too direct 
 and authentic to doubt was not, however, suitable for pubhcation. 
 If the picture is considered by some to be overdrawn, I can only reply 
 that it has been my endeavor rather to photograph facts than to portray 
 them in striking colors, and that I have been guided by fidelity to the 
 truth within the limitations of propriety more than by a desire not to 
 disturb the reader's sensibilities. It will be our privilege in the remain- 
 ing pages to turn to brighter and more attractive phases of our theme, 
 which the dark background of the present lecture will serve to bring 
 out into vivid and cheering relief. We shall realize, perhaps all 
 the more gratefully, what Christianity means to human society, and 
 what an object-lesson of hope and inspiration has been given to man- 
 kind in the victorious life of Christ : 
 
 " Who brings the fading flower of poor Humanity 
 To perfect blossoming and sweetest fruit." 
 
UTERATURE AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE n 
 
 The subjects referred to in the preceding lecture are so many and varied that the author cannot 
 hope in a brief bibliography to do more than suggest to students some sources of his own informatiDn, 
 and indicate where further and fuller investigation of special countries or topics may be made. With 
 a few exceptions only recent books are noted. Missionary volumes referred to in Lecture II., will be 
 found, in most instances, in the bibliography of Lecture I. 
 
 I. SOCIETY BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Anderson, Robert E., The Story of 
 Extinct Civilizations of the East. 
 N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1896. 
 
 BlOmner, H., The Home Life of the 
 Ancient Greeks. (Translated by Alice 
 Zimmern.) L., Cassell & Co., 
 1893. 
 
 BouGHTON, Willis, History of Ancient 
 Peoples. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's 
 Sons, 1897. 
 
 Brinton, Daniel G., Religions of 
 Primitive Peoples. N. Y., G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, 1897. 
 
 Frazer, R. W., Silent Gods and Sun- 
 Steeped Lands. L., T. Fisher Unwin, 
 1895. 
 
 Inge, William Ralph, Society in 
 Rome under the Casars. L., John 
 Murray; N. Y., Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, 1892. 
 
 Jevons, Frank Byron, An Introduc 
 tion to the History of Religion. 
 L. and N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 
 1896. 
 
 Laurie, S. S., Historical Survey of 
 Pre-Christian Education. L. and 
 N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 
 1895. 
 
 Maspero, G., The Dawn of Civilization. 
 (Egypt and Chaldaja.) (Translated 
 by M. L. McClure.) Second edition, 
 revised. N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 
 1896. 
 
 Morgan, L. H., Ancient Society. 
 N. Y., Henry Holt & Co., 1878. 
 
 Mozley, Rev. J. B., Ruling Ideas in 
 Early Ages and their Relation to Old 
 Testament Faith. New edition. L., 
 and N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 
 1896. 
 
 Ratzel, Friedrich, The History of 
 Mankind. (Translated by A. J. But- 
 ler.) Vol. i. L. and N. Y., The Mac 
 millan Co., 1896. 
 
 SlENKiEWicz, H., Quo Vadis: A Nar- 
 rativeofthe Time of Nero. (Translated 
 from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin.) 
 B., Little, Brown & Co., 1896. 
 
 Taylor, Henry Osborn, Ancient 
 Ideals: A Study of Intellectual and 
 Spiritual Growth from Early Times 
 to the Establishment of Christianity. 
 N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896. 
 
 Tylor, E. B., Primitive Culture. 
 2 vols. L., John Murray; N. Y., 
 Henry Holt & Co., 1873. 
 
 Tylor, E. B., Researches into the Early 
 History of Mankind. L., John 
 Murray; N. Y., Henry Holt & Co., 
 1878. 
 
 Tylor, E. B., Anthropology: Introduc- 
 tion to Study of Man and Civilization. 
 L. and N. Y., Macmillan & Co., 1881. 
 
 Wiedemann, A., Religion of the Ancient 
 Egyptians. N. Y., G. P. Putnam's 
 Sons, 1897. 
 
 IL SOQETY IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AND MEDIEVAL 
 
 PERIOD 
 
 Brace, Charles Loring, Cesta Christi; Church, Dean, The Beginning of the 
 or, A History of Humane Progress Middle Ages. L. andN. Y., The Mac- 
 under Christianity. Fifth edition. millan Co., 1896. 
 N. Y., A. C. Armstrong & Son, Schmidt, C, The Social Results of 
 '''M. Early Christianity. (Translated by 
 
 340 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 341 
 
 Mrs. Thorpe. Second edition. L., 
 William Isbister, 1889. 
 Storrs, Rev. Richard S., The Divine 
 
 in the Ancient Church. (Translated 
 from the German.') N. Y., Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1883. 
 
 Origin of Christianity. N. Y., Uhlhorn, Gerhard, The Conflict of 
 
 A. D. F. Randolph & Co., 1884. 
 Uhlhorn, Gerhard, Christian Charity 
 
 Christianity with Heathenism. N. Y. , 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894. 
 
 III. SOCIETY IN THE MODERN ERA 
 
 1. JAPAN 
 
 Bacon, Alice M.) Japanese Girls and 
 Women. B. and N. Y., Houghton, 
 Mifflin & Co., 1893. 
 
 Batchelor, Rev. John, The Ainu of 
 Japan. L., Religious Tract Society; 
 N. Y. and C, Fleming H. Revell Co., 
 1892. 
 
 Buckley, Edmund, Phallicism in 
 Japan. C, The University Press, 
 1895. 
 
 Chamberlain, Basil Hall, Things 
 Japanese. Second edition, revised 
 and enlarged. L., Kegan Paul, 
 Trench, Trubner & Co., 1891. 
 
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 the Powers. L. and N. Y., Longmans, 
 Green & Co., 1896. 
 
 MuiR, Sir William, Mohammedan Con- 
 troversy. E., T. & T. Clark, 1897. 
 
 Poole, Stanley Lane, Studies in a 
 Mosque. Second edition. L. and 
 Sydney, Eden, Remington & Co., 
 1893. 
 
 Poole, Stanley Lane, The Story of 
 
BIBLIOGliAPHY 
 
 S4r 
 
 Turkey. (" The Story of the Nations 
 Series.") N. Y., G. P. Putnam's 
 Sons, 1897. 
 
 Ramsay, W. M., Impressions of Turkey 
 during Twelve Years' Wanderings. 
 L., Hodder & Stoughton, 1897. 
 
 Thomson, H. C, The Outgoing Turk. 
 L.,W. Heinemann; N. Y., D. Apple- 
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 TiSDALL, Rev. W. St. Clair, The Con- 
 version of Armenia to the Christian 
 Faith. L., Religious Tract Society; 
 N. Y. and C, Fleming H. Revell Co., 
 1897. 
 
 Violations of the Hatti Humayoun : A 
 Paper Prepared at the Request of Sir 
 Philip Currie, British Ambassador to 
 the Sublime Porte, by the Evangelical 
 Alliance of Constantinople. N. Y., 
 Evangelical Alliance Office, 5 1 1 United 
 Charities Building, 1895. 
 
 WiNTLE, W. J., Armenia and its Sor- 
 rows. L., Andrew Melrose, 1896. 
 
 10. AFRICA 
 
 Africa and the American Negro: Ad- 
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 on Africa, at Atlanta, December 13-iSt 
 iSgj. Edited by Professor J. W. E. 
 Bowen, D.D. Atlanta, Gammon 
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 Ashe, Rev. R. P., Two Kings of 
 Uganda; or. Life by the Shores of the 
 Victoria Nyanxa. L., Sampson Low, 
 Marston & Co., 1897. 
 
 Brownlee, Charles, Reminiscences of 
 Kaffir Life and History. Lovedale, 
 Africa, Lovedale Mission Press, 1896. 
 
 Bruce, Bishop G. W. H. Knight, 
 Memories of Mashonaland. L. and 
 N. Y., Edward Arnold, 1895. 
 
 Bruce, Bishop G. W. H. Knight, 
 Journals of the Mashonaland Mission, 
 iSSSto iSgs. L., S. P. C. K., 1892. 
 
 Cameron, V. L., Across Africa. Second 
 edition. L.,GeorgePhilip&Son,i888. 
 
 Correspondence Respecting Operations 
 against Slave-Traders in British Cen- 
 tral Africa, Blue Book Africa, No. 
 4 (.1896). 
 
 Cousins, Rev. W. E., The Madagascar 
 of To-day. L., Religious Tract So- 
 ciety, 1895. 
 
 Crisp, William, The Bechuana of South 
 Africa. L., S. P. C. K., 1896. 
 
 Dickie, Rev. William, The Story of the 
 Mission in Old Calabar, E., OfiSces 
 of United Presbyterian Church, 1894. 
 
 Du Bois, W. E. B., The Suppression of 
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 and N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 
 1896. 
 
 Du BosE, Rev. H. C, Memoirs of Rev. 
 John Leighton Wilson, D.D. , Mission- 
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 1895. 
 
 Ellis, A. B., The Ewi-Speaking People 
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 Ellis, A. B., The Tshi-Speaking Peoples 
 of the Gold Coast. L., Chapman & 
 Hall, 1887. 
 
 Ellis, A. B., The Yoruba-Speaking Peo- 
 ples of the Slave Coast of West Africa. 
 L., Chapman & Hall, 1894. 
 
 Faulkner, Rose E., Joseph Sidney Hill, 
 First Bishop in Western Equatorial 
 Africa. L., H. R. AUenson, 1895. 
 
 Ferryman, A. F. Mockler-, Up the 
 Niger. L,, George Philip & Son, 
 1892. 
 
 Glave, E. J., Six Years of Adventure in 
 Congoland. N. Y., Russell & Son; 
 L., Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 
 1892. 
 
 Gregory, J. W., The Great Rift Valley : ' 
 The Narrative of a Journey to Mount 
 Kenya and Lake Baringo. L., John 
 Murray, 1896. 
 
 Harris, W. B., Land of an African 
 Sultan : Travels in Morocco in iSS^, 
 1888, and i88g. New edition. L., 
 Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1896. 
 
 Hinde, Sidney L., The Fallofthe Con- 
 go Arabs. L., Methuen & Co., 1896 ; 
 N. Y., Thomas Whittaker, 1897. 
 
 HOLUB, Emil, Se^en Years in South 
 Africa. 2 vols. L., Sampson Low, 
 Marston & Co., 1881. 
 
 Hore, Rev. Edward Coode, Tangan- 
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 L., Edward Stanford, 1893. 
 
 Ingham, Rt. Rev. E. G., Sierra Leone 
 after a Hundred Years. L., Seeley & 
 Co., 1894. 
 
 Johnston, Dr. James, Reality versus 
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 N. Y. and C, Fleming H. Revell 
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 Johnston, Sir H. H., British Central 
 Africa. L., Methuen & Co., 1897. 
 
 Kerr, Robert, Pioneering in Morocco. 
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 Kingsley, Mary H., Travels in West 
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 Cameroons. L. and N. Y., The Mac- 
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 Knight, E. F., Madagascar in War- 
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 & Co., 1896. 
 
 Knight, E, F., Letters from the Sudan. 
 
348 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 L. and N. V., The Macmillan Co., 
 1897. 
 
 Latimer, Elizabeth Wormeley, 
 Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth 
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 Political Laws of the South African 
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 ofPrempeh: A Diary of Lift with the 
 
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 Reeves, Jesse Siddall, The Interna- 
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 History of the Gold Coast and Asante 
 Based on Traditions and Historical 
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 than Three Centuries, from about 1500 
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 Report by Commissioner Johnston of the 
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 Robinson, Charles Henry, Hausa- 
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 Rowley, Rev. Henry, Twenty Years in 
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 Selous, F. C, Travel and Adventure in 
 South-East Africa. L., Rowland 
 Ward, 1893. 
 
 SiBREE, Rev. James, Madagascar before 
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 Slatin, Rudolph C. (Slatin Pasha), 
 Fire and Sword in the Sudan. (Trans- 
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 Slow AN, William J., The Story of our 
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 Smith, A. Donaldson, Through Un- 
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 N. Y., Edward Arnold, 1897. 
 
 Smith, Rev. G. Herbert, Among tht 
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 Stanley, H. M., How I Found Living- 
 stone: Travels, Adventures, and Dis- 
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 Stanley, H. M., In Darkest Africa. 
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 new edition, L., Sampson Low, 
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 Stanley, H. M., Tht Congo, and tht 
 Founding of the Free State. L., Samp- 
 son Low, Marston & Co., 1885. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 349 
 
 Stanley, H. M., T%r(f the Dark Con- 
 tinent. Second edition. L., Sampson 
 Low, Marston & Co., 1879. 
 
 Statham, F. Reginald, South Africa 
 as it is. L., T. Fisher Unwin, 
 1897. 
 
 Tangye, H. L., In New South Africa. 
 L., Horace Cox, 1896. 
 
 Theal, G. M'Call, The Portuguese in 
 South Africa. L., T. Fisher Unwin, 
 1896. 
 
 Thomson, Joseph, To the Central 
 African Lakes and Back. Second 
 edition. L., Sampson Low, Marston 
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 Thomson, Joseph, Travels in the Atlas 
 and Southern Morocco. L., George 
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 Tyler, Rev. Josiah, Forty Years among 
 the Zulus. B. and C, Congregational 
 Sunday-school and Publishing Society, 
 1891. 
 
 Vandeleur, C. F. S., Two Years' 
 Travel in Uganda, Unyoro, and on the 
 Upper Nile. L., Office of The Geo- 
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 Vincent, Frank, Actual Africa; or. 
 The Coming Continent. N. Y., D, 
 Appleton & Co., 1895. 
 
 Waller, Rev. Horace, Slaving and 
 Slavery in our British Protectorate. 
 L., P. S. King & Co., 1895. 
 
 Ward, Herbert, Five Years with the 
 Congo Cannibals. L., Chatto & 
 Windus; N. Y., Robert Bonner's 
 Sons, 1890. 
 
 Widdicombe, Rev. Canon, In the 
 Lesuto : A Sketch of African Mission 
 Life. L., S. P. C. K., 1895. 
 
 WiLMOT, A., The Story of the Expan- 
 sion of South Africa. L., T. Fisher 
 Unwin, 1894. 
 
 WiNGATE, Major F. R., Makdism and 
 the Egyptian Sudan. L. and N. Y., 
 Macmillan & Co., 189 1. 
 
 Withers, H., The English and the 
 Dutch in South Africa: An His- 
 torical Retrospect. L., Wilson & Co., 
 1896. 
 
 Wood, H. F., Egypt under the British. 
 L., Chapman & Hall, 1897. 
 
 WoRSFOLD, W. B., South Africa: A 
 Study in Colonial Administration and 
 Development. N. Y., Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, 1895. 
 
 II. THE WEST INDIES 
 
 Cassecanarie, M. D., Obeah Simplified: 
 The True JVanga, What it Really is, 
 and How it is Done. Port of Spain, 
 Mirror OSice, 1896, 
 
 Froude, James Anthony, The English 
 in the West Indies. L., Longmans, 
 Green & Co., 1888. 
 
 Jamaica: Enslaved and Free. N. Y., 
 Carlton & Porter, n. d. 
 
 Lucas, C. P. , The West Indian Colonies. 
 L., Henry Frowde, 1888. 
 
 Morris, Ira Nelson, With the Trade- 
 Winds: A Jaunt in Venezuela and 
 the West Indies. N. Y., G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons, 1897. 
 
 Musson, S. p., and Roxburgh, T. L., 
 The Handbook of Jamaica. Second 
 edition. Kingston, Jamaica, Govern- 
 ment Printing Office; L., Edward 
 Stanford, 1894. 
 
 RoBSON, Rev. George, The Story of 
 Our Jamaica Mission. E., Offices of 
 United Presbyterian Church, 1894. 
 
 Rodway, James, The West Indies and 
 the Spanish Main. N. Y., G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons j L. , T. Fisher Unwin, 
 1896. 
 
 St. John, Sir Spencer, Hayti ; or. The 
 Black Republic. Second edition. L., 
 Smith & Elder, 1889. 
 
 Stoddard, Rev. Charles A. , Cruising 
 among the Carribees. N. Y., Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1895. 
 
 Undeehill, Edward Bean, The West 
 Indies: Their Social and Religious 
 Condition, L., Jackson & Walford, 
 1862. 
 
 12. MEXICO, CENTRAL AND 
 SOUTH AMERICA 
 
 Brett, Rev. W. H., Legends and Myths 
 of the Indians of British Guiana. L., 
 Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1880. 
 
 Brett, Rev. W. H., The Indian Tribes 
 of Guiana. Second edition. L., 
 Bell & Sons, 1868. 
 
 Butler, Rev. William, Mexico in 
 Transition from the Power of Political 
 Romanism to Civil and Religious 
 Liberty. Third edition. N. Y., 
 Hunt & Eaton, 1893. 
 
 Crommelin, May, Over the Andes from 
 the Argentine to Chili and Peru. L., 
 Richard Bentley & Sons, 1896. 
 
 Groesbeck, Telford, Thelncas: The 
 Children of the Sun. N. Y., G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, 1896. 
 
 JOSA, Rev. F. P. L., The Apostle of the 
 Indians of Guiana : A Memoir of the 
 Life and Labours of the Rev. W. H. 
 Brett. L., Wells Gardner, Darton & 
 Co., 1887. 
 
 RoDWAY, James, In the Guiana Forest. 
 Third edition. L., T. Fisher Unwin, 
 1897. 
 
350 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Whymper, E., Travels amongst the 
 Great Andes of the Equator, New- 
 edition. N. Y., Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, 1896, 
 
 13. NORTH AMERICA 
 
 Adam, G. Mercer, The Canadian 
 North-West: Its History and its 
 Troubles. Toronto, 1885. 
 
 Brinton, Daniel G., The Myths of the 
 New World: A Treatise on the Sym- 
 bolism and Mythology of the Red Race 
 of America. Third edition, revised. 
 P., David McKay, 1896. 
 
 Bruce, Miner W., Alaska: Its History 
 and Resources. Seattle, Washington, 
 Lowman & Hanford Stationery and 
 Printing Co., 1895. 
 
 ElCKEMEYER, CHARLES, and LILIAN W., 
 Among the Pueblo Indians. N. Y., 
 The Merriam Co., 1895. 
 
 Field, Rev. H. M., Our Western 
 
 Archipelago. N. Y., Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, 1895. 
 Hendren, S. Rivers, Government and 
 Religion of the Virginia Indians. 
 Baltimore, Md., Johns Hopkins Press, 
 
 1895- 
 Knapp, Frances, and Childe, R. L., 
 
 The Thlinkets of Alaska. C, Stone 
 
 & Kimball, 1897. 
 Newton, W., Twenty Years on the 
 
 Saskatchewan, N. W. Canada: A 
 
 Narrative of Missionary Work. L., 
 
 Elliot Stock, 1897. 
 Young, Egerton Ryerson, By Canoe 
 
 and Dog- Train among the Cree and 
 
 Salteaux Indians. N. Y., Hunt & 
 
 Eaton, 1892. 
 Young, Egerton Ryerson, On the 
 
 Indian Trail. N. Y. and C, Fleming 
 
 H. Revell Co., 1897. 
 Young, Egerton Ryerson, Stories from 
 
 Indian Wigwams and Northern Camp- 
 
 Fires. N. Y., Hunt & Eaton, 1893. 
 
 IV. SPECIAL SUBJECTS 
 
 I. TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Gustafson, Axel, The Foundation of 
 
 Death : A Study of the Drink Question. 
 
 N. Y., Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1887. 
 Murdoch, J., Temperance Reform in 
 
 India. Madras, Christian Literature 
 
 Society for India, 1897. 
 Runciman, James, The Ethics of Drink, 
 
 and Other Social Questions. L,, Hod- 
 
 der & Stoughton, 1895. 
 Temperance in all Nations. Report of 
 
 the World's Temperance Congress, 
 
 held at Chicago, June, 1893. N. Y., 
 
 The National Temperance Society and 
 
 Publication House, 1893. 
 
 2. THE OPIUM EVIL 
 
 Cliefe, H. H. T., England! s Greatest Na- 
 tional Sin. L., Elliot Stock, 1892. 
 
 Dudgeon, Dr. J., The Evils of the Use 
 of Opium. (A valuable essay in Rec- 
 ords of Shanghai Conference, iSgo, 
 PP- 314-354-) 
 
 Maughan, W. C, Our Opium Trade in 
 India and China. L., Society for the 
 Suppression of the Opium Trade, Fins- 
 bury House, Blomfield Street, 1894. 
 
 Publications of the Society for the Sup- 
 pression of the Opium Trade, Finsbury 
 House, Blomfield Street, London, 
 England. 
 
 Roberts, Sir W., Opium Habit in India. 
 Second edition. L., Smith, Elder & 
 Co., 1897. 
 
 RoviTNTREE, Joshua, The Opium Habit 
 in the East: A Study of the Evidence 
 Given to the Royal Commission on 
 Opium, iSgs-g^.. L., P. S. King & 
 Son, 1895. 
 
 Streddar, Eleanor, Aluteh: A Story 
 of the Chinese Hills. Treats of the 
 opium evil in China. L., Stoneman, 
 1896. 
 
 Turner, Rev. F. Storrs, British Opium 
 Policy. L., Sampson Lovf, Marston 
 &Co. 
 
 3. GAMBLING 
 
 Mackenzie, W. Douglas, The Ethics of 
 Gambling. L., Sunday-school Union, 
 1895 ; P-. Henry Altemus, 1897. 
 
 4. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE- 
 TRADE 
 
 Froude, James Anthony, English Sea- 
 men in the Sixteenth Century. New 
 edition. L. and N. Y., Longmans, 
 Green & Co., 1895. 
 
 Ingram, John Kklls, A History of 
 Slavery and Serfdom. L., Adam & 
 Charles Black, 1895. 
 
 5. SUPERSTITIONS AND 
 WITCHCRAFT 
 
 Devil-Dancers, Witch-Finders, Rain- 
 Makers, and Medicine-Men. Madras, 
 Christian Literature Society, 1896. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 361 
 
 Elworthy, F. T., The Evil Eye: An session and Allied Themes. N. Y. 
 
 Account of this Ancient Superstition. and C, Fleming H. Revell Co., 
 
 L., John Murray, 1896. 1894. 
 
 King, L. W., Babylonian Magic and Simpson, W., The Buddhist Praying- 
 Sorcery. L., Luzac & Co., 1896. Wheel : A Collection of Material Bear- 
 
 Mallock, W. H., Studies of Con- ing upon the Symbolism of the Wheel 
 
 temporary Superstition. L., Ward & 
 Downey, 1895. 
 Nevius, Rev. John L., Demon Pos- 
 
 and Circular Movements in Custom and 
 Religious Ritual. L. and N. Y., The 
 Macmillan Co., 1896. 
 
 V. MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 DowKONTT, G. D., Murdered Millions 
 versus Medical Missions. N. Y. (pub- 
 lished by the author), 121 East Forty- 
 fifth Street. 
 
 Earle, Alice Morse, Curious Punish- 
 ments of Bygone Days. C, H. S. 
 Stone & Co., 1896. 
 
 Houghton, Rev. Ross C, Women of 
 the Orient. Cincinnati, Curts & Jen- 
 nings ; N. Y., Hunt & Eaton, 1877. 
 
 Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, 
 Democracy and Liberty. 2 vols. L. 
 and N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 
 1896. 
 
 LucKOCK, Dean H. M., The History of 
 Marriage, Jewish and Christian. 
 Second edition, revised and enlarged. 
 L. and N, Y., Longmans, Green & 
 Co., 1895. 
 
 Lyall, Sir a. C, Asiatic Studies: Re- 
 ligious and Social. Second edition. 
 L., John Murray, 1884. 
 
 MttLLER, F. Max, Contributions to the 
 Science of Mythology, 2 vols. L. and 
 N. Y., Longmans, Green & Co., 
 1896. 
 
 Scott, Benjamin, A State Inquiry: 
 
 Its Rise, Extension, and Overthrow. 
 
 L., Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & 
 
 Co., 1890. 
 SiNH Jee, Sir Bhagvat, A Short 
 
 History of Aryan Medical Science. 
 
 L. and N. Y., The Macmillan Co., 
 
 1896. 
 Smith, W. R., Kinship and Marriage 
 
 in Early Arabia. Cambridge, Cam- 
 bridge Press, 1885. 
 Wakefield, C. C, Future Trade in the 
 
 Far East. L., Whittaker & Co., 
 
 1896. 
 Watkins, Oscar D., A Treatise on the 
 
 Divine Laws of Marriage. L., Riv- 
 
 ington & Percival, 1895. 
 Westermarck, Dr. Edward, A 
 
 History of Human Marriage. Second 
 
 edition. L. and N. Y., Macmillan & 
 
 Co., 1894. 
 Wines, Frederick Howard, Punish. 
 
 ment and Reformation : An Historical 
 
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 & Co., 1895. 
 
SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE III 
 
 The evils discussed in the previous lecture have accentuated the call for an efifec- 
 tive remedy. It is the purpose of the present lecture to pass in review some reme- 
 dial expedients which, although sometimes advocated with much assurance, have 
 nevertheless failed to vindicate their efficacy apart from the inspiration, guidance, 
 and cooperation of Christianity. It is not asserted that they are in every instance 
 inherently and necessarily without value, but that, in view of the ordinary tendencies 
 of human nature, they are found to be for the purposes of social reconstruction de- 
 fective and misleading, incompetent to cope with the difficulties and demands of the 
 environment, unless pervaded and directed by the moral power and spiritual en- 
 lightenment of Christian ideals. With a view to test the social fruitage of these 
 agencies apart from Christianity, the following propositions are discussed : 
 
 I. Secular education apart from Christian truth does not hold the secret of social 
 regeneration. 
 
 II. Material civilization, as exemplified in temporal prosperity, artistic luxury, 
 and commercial progress, cannot guarantee the moral transformation of non-Chris- 
 tian society. 
 
 III. State legislation in and by itself, apart from Christianized public sentiment, 
 is not an effective instrument of social righteousness. 
 
 IV. Patriotism cannot be trusted to insure the moral or political reform of non- 
 Christian peoples. It may represent simply a blind and prejudiced adherence to all 
 that is objectionable and injurious in the religious, social, and national life. 
 
 V. The moral forces of ethnic religions are not capable of an uplifting and benef- 
 icent renewal of society. The individual and social product of Buddhism is found 
 to be a paralyzed personality; of Confucianism an impoverished personality; of 
 Hinduism a degraded personality ; of Islam an enslaved personality. The making 
 of a perfected society is not in Shintoism, nor in Taoism, nor in Jainism, nor is 
 Parsism equal to the task. Other and lesser religious lights lead only into social 
 darkness. 
 
 Christianity is the supreme gift of God to human society. It is full of religious 
 truth, moral energy, and penetrating influence, making it instrumental, wherever 
 introduced, in changing the current of social life in the direction of higher ideals and 
 nobler culture. As a religious environment it becomes an inspiring and a guiding 
 force in the formation of a new public opinion and in the lifting up of the purer 
 standards of civilization. 
 
 35a 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES AND THE 
 CAUSES OF THEIR FAILURE 
 
" Religion, like everything else, is to be judged by its effects. What moral dis- 
 cipline, what type of character has it produced? Does it develop manhood? Has 
 it restrained human passion and selfishness? Has it purified and ennobled the life 
 of the home? Has it been fruitful and beneficent in its influence on social and polit- 
 ical institutions? Has it contributed to human freedom and happiness? What 
 educational force has it exerted? What literature, arts, and sciences have sprung 
 from it? Has it been a friend to progress and civilization? In short, vfhat history 
 has it, and to what extent is that history being realized in the public life of the 
 world? " Rev. T. E. Slater. 
 
 " Through its whole history the Christian religion has developed supreme affini- 
 ties for best things. For the noblest culture, for purest morals, for magnificent 
 literatures, for most finished civilizations, for most energetic national temperaments, 
 for most enterprising races, for the most virile and progressive stock of mind, it has 
 manifested irresistible sympathies. It goes wherever it can find these superlative 
 growths of human nature. Where it cannot find them it creates them. Judging its 
 future by its past, no other system of human thought has so splendid a destiny. It 
 is the only system which possesses undying youth. . . . There are religions of the 
 soil. They abide where they were born. They develop no power of self-expansion 
 and no facility of migration. Of this immobile type Christianity is not. It has 
 restless, migratory impulses — tastes, we may almost call them — which forecast its 
 destiny of dominion. It is emphatically the religion of colonization and of com- 
 merce. Always and everywhere it is the pioneer of beneficent change. It trans- 
 plants itself into nascent languages and cements antagonistic races from which elect 
 nations spring. 
 
 " It is a striking fact, bearing upon this world's future, that civilization gives no 
 sign of perpetuity in history till it is transplanted into Christianity. Independently, 
 like all other social forces of human origin, it rots and dies. Only when it is rooted 
 in Christian ideas does it give promise of a future. The most corrupt nations have 
 been the most accomplished in civilized graces. The most appalling downfalls of 
 great races have been the ending of the most illustrious careers of national renown. 
 The ante-Christian civilizations have betrayed a frightful tendency to the develop- 
 ment of cruelty and lust in national entertainments and the rites of national religions. 
 They taught men to luxuriate in the sufferings of their fellows, and to adore their 
 deities by acts of bestiality." Austin Phelps, D.D., LL.D. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 * 
 
 INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES AND THE CAUSES OF 
 THEIR FAILURE 
 
 The study of the social evils of the non-Christian world has em- 
 phasized the necessity for an adequate remedy. Here we deal with a 
 vital point in our discussion. If a remedy is needed, then it is essential 
 that it be the right one. We must scrutinize with care all proposals 
 intended to provide relief and guarantee improvement. If we can 
 determine with our best light that little, if any, dependence can be 
 placed upon certain popular or highly recommended panaceas, then we 
 have cleared the way of approach to something more effectual, and 
 have prepared our minds to accept it with confidence in its adequacy. 
 
 It will be helpful at this stage of our inquiry to glance at some of 
 the civilizing agencies which are sometimes named as competent to 
 regenerate heathen society independently of Chris- 
 tianity, and see if they have the moral quality and Christianity the "still, 
 
 small voice " of hu- 
 
 force necessary to the accomphshment of such a man history. 
 
 task. Their claims are often put forward with 
 great assurance and plausibihty. Education, civilization, legislation, 
 patriotic aspirations, the moral power of ethnic religions, and the spirit 
 of self -prompted reform are all, singly or collectively, referred to as in- 
 strumentalities capable of lifting society to the higher levels of morality 
 and of recasting humanity in new spiritual moulds. In reviewing these 
 agencies and scrutinizing their potentialities, we are reminded of the 
 vision of the ancient seer, in which he was taught that the quickening 
 power of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in 
 the fire, but in a " still, small voice." It is not in the external commo- 
 tions, the visible upheavals, the outward and spectacular changes, that 
 the divine energy dwells, but rather in the secret influences within. 
 
 3SS 
 
356 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 It is the voice of God, at once tender and inspiring, that summons the 
 soul to life and action, and gives it the mighty assurance of indwelling 
 power. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, moreover, that the agencies above re- 
 ferred to, so far as we are familiar with their influence in Christendom, 
 are aheady in cooperation with Christianity. They 
 are in part infused with and inspired by its spirit. 
 
 The question stated. •,,^, .. ■, ■ ■• ■ ... 
 
 If the Christian element m these mstrumentahties 
 is to be included, then they are practically mission 
 agencies. Education under the spell of Christian influence is one thing, 
 and quite another thing when entirely out of touch with Christian ideals. 
 When pervaded by the spirit of a true religious outlook, it gathers to 
 itself a vital force, a purifying energy, a moral tone, a gracious temper, 
 and a constructive aim which place it in the front rank of helpful 
 social forces. The same may be said of civilization, patriotism, legis- 
 lation, and the power of public opinion ; if these are infused with Chris- 
 tian sentiments, they cannot be looked upon as acting independently 
 of, but rather in cooperation with, Christianity. If the question is to 
 be fairly put, therefore, it must be whether education and kindred 
 forces, entirely separated from Christianity and independent of it, will 
 avail to save society. Missions are not insensible of the value of these 
 instrumentalities as those which yield themselves to moral aims and can 
 thus be consecrated to human advancement. In fact, they are made in 
 an indirect way the very channels of mission activity, and as such are 
 useful and effective, but will they be fruitful in beneficial results without 
 the Christian spirit? Are they in themselves morally vitalizing and re- 
 formatory? Upon what basis do they rest in inculcating moral account- 
 ability? Have they inherent virtue to renew and refashion the spiritual 
 tone of society? We can safely claim that, tested by such searching 
 criteria, they will be found to be lacking in power to accomplish deep 
 and permanent results ;i nor have they a watchword, such as Christian- 
 ity possesses, to stimulate and ennoble humanity. The remedy required 
 must have in it a supernatural and divine efficacy, which never inheres 
 in purely secular civilization.^ This supreme factor of supernatural 
 energy must be mighty, pervasive, effectual, and universal. It must be 
 able to work revolutionary changes in the realm of intellectual percep- 
 tion and moral impulse. Think for a moment what is required of it 
 and what are the forces arrayed against it. It will necessarily be in 
 
 1 Cf. Seelye, " Christian Missions," Lecture II., pp. 31-58. 
 
 2 Cf. article on " Christian Supernaturalism," by Professor B. B. Warfield, 
 D.D., LL.D., in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, January, 1897, 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES Oi, FAILURE 357 
 
 conflict with debased public sentiment, immemorial social tendencies, 
 dominant customs, hardened sensibilities, confirmed phases of charac- 
 ter, much ignorant inertia, and a host of all-powerful superstitions.^ 
 
 In view of these requirements, is there any remedial agency which 
 is equal to the task, except, as we shall try to show later, the religion 
 of Christ, which it is the function of missions to teach and establish? ^ 
 
 Education alone, apart from Christianity, will not accomplish 
 it. It is not in itself a moral force. In fact, if it is out of touch en- 
 tirely with Christianity, it often becomes a power- 
 ful weapon of evil, and may be subsidized in vio- '**•'= secret of social 
 
 ,,■! ,r ■• T regeneration in educa- 
 
 lent hostility to the higher welfare of society. Let tion alone ? 
 
 us here guard carefully our meaning. We do not 
 intend to assert that education under Christian auspices, pervaded, by 
 the spirit and aim of a Christian purpose, is not a useful and helpful 
 stimulus to social progress. It should rather be counted a noble and 
 legitimate missionary instrumentality. Our contention, then, is that 
 mere education, either elementary or higher, apart from Christianity, 
 with no promptings of Christian morality, no infusion of Christian truth, 
 and no lessons in Christian living, is not in itself an effective instrument 
 of social regeneration. We do not dispute that it is an intellectual 
 stimulus, that it broadens the outlook, and breaks the fetters of super- 
 stition, is of benefit in its sphere and way as a ministry to the mental 
 faculties, and that it may indeed be a scholastic preparation for a 
 subsequent study and more appreciative apprehension of Christian 
 truth and morality ; yet, while it is in alliance with materialism, agnos- 
 ticism, or a false and superstitious religious system, its power as a 
 moral regenerator of society is at a minimum. Civilization is not 
 derived from or based upon knowledge in the head so much as it is 
 drawn from and prompted by a true religious and humane temper in 
 the heart and life of man. 
 
 1 Cf. article on " Foreign Missions and Sociology in China," by the Rev. Arthur 
 H. Smith, in The Missionary Review of the World, February, 1895. 
 
 2 "It must be recollected that the moral standard of individuals is fixed not 
 alone, and sometimes not principally, by their personal convictions, but by the prin- 
 ciples, the traditions, and the habits of the society in which they live, and below 
 which it is a point of honour, as well as of duty, not to sink. A religious system is 
 only, then, truly tested when it is set to reform and to train, on a territory of its 
 own, great masses of mankind."— William E. Gladstone. 
 
358 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The evidence of this lack of regenerative power in mere education 
 is not wanting. The ancient culture and the highest scholastic 
 achievements of Oriental and classical paganism were developed side 
 by side with the grossest moral degradation and the most colossal 
 social wrongs. Classical philosophy in its most ideal development had 
 nothing better to offer as a social system than Plato's dream of a per- 
 fect society as represented in his " Republic," and, as Dr. Fairbairn 
 says, " That Repubhc could not have been realized without the ruin of 
 humanity." i The Renaissance was a revival of learning, but it was 
 fruitless in moral energy until the Reformation introduced the spirit of 
 a living religious faith into the quickened intellectual development of 
 Europe in the sixteenth century. The deistical revival of the eighteenth 
 century was an effort to alienate learning and rehgion, and its tenden- 
 cies are recorded in the history of Western Europe in that century of 
 social reaction and confusion. 
 
 Coming to more modern times, there are no nations in the world 
 where education apart from Christianity has had such large opportuni- 
 ties as in Japan, China, and India. The advances 
 Is the evidence from Qf education in Japan have been phenomenal ; yet 
 
 Japan, China, and India , .11*111 
 
 convincing ? Competent observers are convmced that mtellectual 
 
 progress alone has not improved the morality of 
 
 the country.2 In China, education is the hope and the goal of tens of 
 
 thousands of toiling students, and the result is represented by the 
 
 literati of the Celestial Empire, who form, perhaps, one of the most 
 
 1 The abortive character of Plato's ideal has been sketched by Dr. Fairbairn, 
 who thus vifrites of it : 
 
 " Think where he [Plato] lived, in the fairest land of antiquity, under the bright- 
 est sun, amid the most cultivated people, pupil of the greatest teacher and philosopher 
 of his race, associated with the wisest statesmen, heir to an heroic past, moved by a 
 poetry that is still the joy of the scholar, and then conceive him turning in his maturest 
 manhood to think out the model of a perfect republic. And what was it? It was 
 a state where there was to be little freedom, for philosophers were to be kings— and 
 a strange king the philosopher always makes, for he is a man resolute to fit men into 
 his theory, and his best theory is, you may be well assured, a bad frame for the 
 simplest man. And the state these philosophers were to rule was to be one where 
 the home was destroyed, where women were to be held in common, where there .vas 
 to be a community of goods, where life was to be regulated by rules and hard-fixed 
 methods that would have allowed no elasticity, no play for glad and spontaneous 
 energy. That Republic could not have been realized without the ruin of humanity, 
 and was possible at its best only for the Greek, was conceived in derision of the 
 barbarian, and afforded even to Greek nature only the poorest exercise."— Fairbairn, 
 " Religion in History and in Modern Life," p. 163. 
 
 2 Bishop Evington, of Japan, in a speech in Exeter Hall, in the spring of 1894, 
 gave as his emphatic testimony that education pure and simple has not influenced for 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 359 
 
 effective barriers to her social progress. The Chinese system of edu- 
 cation, left to itself, would hold the empire in the grasp of an unpro- 
 gressive and stereotyped social system, and provide no remedy for its 
 stagnation and vacuity. 
 
 In India one of the ripest fruits of non-Christian education is the 
 Brahman, and it is a demonstrated fact that even under the influence 
 of modern education, unless touched by the illuminating and regen- 
 erating povirer of Christianity, he can remain a Brahman still, and will 
 defend the social anomalies of the Brahmanical system, no matter to 
 what degree of culture his education is carried. The system of caste 
 survives practically intact in a purely educational atmosphere, and 
 high-caste students who have received university education under the 
 government system of non-religious influence have clung to the most 
 puerile features of caste ceremonialism to an extent which even Hindus 
 themselves acknowledge to be a disgrace to intelligent manhood.^ One 
 of the most ignoble spectacles of the modern world is an educated 
 Hindu of high caste, upon his retiun from a visit to European civiliza- 
 
 the better the morals of Japan. See The Church Missionary Intelligencer, April, 
 1894, p. 287. 
 
 One of the makers of the New Japan, the' lamented Neesima, revealed his wise 
 discernment when he said : ' ' We seek to send out into the world not only men 
 versed in literature and science, but young men of strong and noble character, who 
 will use their learning for the good of their fellow-men. This, we are convinced, 
 can never be accomplished by abstract speculative teaching, nor by strict and com- 
 plicated rules, but only by Christian principles, and, therefore, we adopt these prin- 
 ciples as the unchangeable foundation of our educational work, and devote our 
 energies to their realization." 
 
 1 The Rev. M. A. Sherring, in his " Hindu Tribes and Castes," says of some of 
 them : " With all their weight of learning, the possession of which enables them to 
 carry off university degrees and honours, they are perfectly content to mingle among 
 the most superstitious and ignorant Hindus, to do as they do, to obey their foolish 
 dictum as law, and to have no other aim in life than to conform to the most rigid 
 usages of their ancestors."— Quoted in " Papers on Indian Social Reform," section 
 on " Caste," p. 49. 
 
 " It has been generally acknowledged that secular education alone will not per- 
 manently and satisfactorily develop or elevate moral character. It is only, as all 
 missionary experience proves, when a man accepts Christ as his teacher, example, 
 and Saviour that he ever rises above the vices and immoralities of a past heathen life. 
 Education and so-called Christian civilization dg work a certain amount of outward 
 improvement, but it is only a whole-hearted acceptance of Christ that does or can 
 produce an abiding and worthy moral character. Old habits and customs die hard, 
 but it is only the men and women who become Christians who ev6r really rise above 
 national weakness, superstition, and vice. So far as known, not one of our native 
 Christians denied the Faith in the terrible days of the Indian Mutiny."— Rev. D. 
 Hutton (L. M. S.), Mirzapur, North India. 
 
360 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tion, going through the ceremony of expiation in accordance with the 
 requirements of his religion, which consists, among other things, of 
 swallowing a pill composed of the five products of the cow. He is 
 truly spoken of in The Hindu Patriot, a leading native paper, as " an 
 imbecile swallower of penitential pills." The effect of Indian educa- 
 tion apart from Christianity is simply to galvanize the social curses that 
 Hinduism has introduced and perpetuated. In a paper presented to 
 the Bombay Conference of 1893 (Report, p. 429), Dr. Mackichan, 
 Principal of the Wilson College at Bombay, writes: "The testimony 
 is borne in from all quarters of the land that secular education, apart 
 from the inculcation of the principles of Christianity, has proved a 
 very doubtful blessing so far as the rehgious condition of the people is 
 concerned. The Government itself, which presides over this system, 
 is profoundly conscious of its failure, and seems to shrink with some 
 alarm from the consequences of its own action. It turns for he!p to 
 all who can supply the influences which it must exclude from its own 
 system. Surely this appeal is a testimony of authority and weight." ^ 
 
 1 Dr. Norman Macleod once expressed his judgment upon the problem of edu- 
 cation in India as follows : " If the non-religious schools and colleges be left alone, 
 they will eventually leave the bulk of the educated portion of the natives either with- 
 out any faith in God or without any fear of God. If Christian colleges and schools 
 flourish alongside the secular ones, a true and reverent faith will be seen to be com- 
 patible with the highest education. " 
 
 At the recent annual prize distribution at the high school of the Church Mission- 
 ary Society at Jabalpur, Sir Anthony P. MacDonnell, K.C.S.I., Civil Commis- 
 sioner of the Central Provinces, presided, and in the course of his address, in which 
 he referred to the difficulties which beset the Government in the attempt to convey 
 moral training in State schools, remarked: " For my own part, I consider the diffi- 
 culties so great that State schools offer me but little prospect of a satisfactory solu- 
 tion. The problem can alone be solved by such institutions as this, which are free 
 to make religious and moral teaching part of the daily curriculum." He especially 
 commended the school as " one of those which aim at something higher than im- 
 parting mere secular instruction, and recognize the great principle that moral train- 
 ing is the only sound basis of education."— Quoted in The Church Missionary 
 Intelligencer, April, 1893, p. 292. 
 
 The late Sir C. U. Aitchison, K.C.S.I., in an able article on the Brahmo Somaj, 
 spoke of materialism and agnosticism, which, " as the outcome of a purely secular 
 education, are throwing their baleful shade over the educated youth of India."— 
 Ibid., March, 1893, p. 173. 
 
 A missionary in India writes : " There is one thing which education does not 
 seem to bring to India, and that is moral stamina. The ability to accept and harbor 
 the most debasing social customs of this land is found among Hindus almost as fre- 
 quently, if not as fully, under the university cap and gown as under the unkempt 
 hair and rags of the village plowman. This is a vast and ghastly factor in the great 
 

 
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INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 361 
 
 The fact that government education in India is so fully and vigor- 
 ously supplemented by the evangelical spirit of mission schools and 
 colleges is a saving influence of the highest value. India, no matter 
 how fully educated, with Christianity ruled out and Hinduism and 
 Mohammedanism still dominant, would wait indefinitely for the day of 
 its social regeneration. Educated Mohammedanism, whether in India 
 or elsewhere, would furnish only another illustration of the impotence 
 of mere secular knowledge to rescue society from the dominance of 
 desolating and degrading evils against which Christianity alone sets 
 itself in sturdy and irreconcilable opposition. 
 
 There is no doubt whatever that within as well as without the 
 bounds of Christendom a high degree of educational culture may be 
 linked with a depraved moral life. It may even be 
 at the back of the m ost vicious and dangerous philo- Some interesting testi- 
 
 , mony from Christen^ 
 
 sophical and social theories. At a recent sociological dom. 
 
 assembly in Paris, Sir John Lubbock asserted that 
 the experience of England since the passage of the General Educational 
 Act, in 1870, has demonstrated that education has had a direct and 
 perceptible influence in the diminution of crime. While the fact that 
 crime has decreased in England since 1870 was not disputed, yet his 
 assertion that this decrease was due to the influence of popular educa- 
 tion was questioned, and it was shown that at least in France experience 
 had indicated exactly the opposite conclusion. The interesting point 
 was then fully brought out that in France the education was purely in- 
 tellectual, while in England it was accompanied by moral training and 
 discipline ; and strong ground was taken in advocacy of the position 
 that mere physical and intellectual education would not lessen crime, 
 but that if a moral and religious element were introduced the reverse 
 would no doubt prove true. 
 
 It is, indeed, a grave question how far education, intelligence, and 
 even a high degree of civilization, by virtue of their own independent 
 influence apart from the power of moral principle, work for the good 
 of society. Certainly there are strange enigmas in contemporary his- 
 tory in the political, commercial, industrial, and humanitarian aspects 
 of the world, which bring our enlightened age to the Bar, and lead us 
 to question whether the world, if it had to wait upon secular education 
 alone for the inauguration of its social millennium, would not be 
 doomed to a long and hopeless vigil. 
 
 problem of India's social and religions renovation." — The Gospel in all Lattds, 
 June, 1894, p. 276. 
 
362 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 II 
 
 Civilization as represented in material prosperity, artistic luxury, 
 and secular progress is also of no avail as a guarantee of social regener- 
 ation. It is not in itself a moral factor, and cannot 
 Is there a guarantee of jjg trusted to work for the higher welfare of society. 
 
 social regeneration in _ . , _ _ . ... 
 
 material civilization ? It IS true that the modem secular spmt and the 
 world-culture of our age may be given by civiliza- 
 tion without Christianity ; they may be introduced in a crude fashion in 
 the form of social veneering, by commerce, colonization, education, and 
 foreign intercourse ; but it is evident that the advantage of this method 
 is wholly superficial. It is clearly the testimony of -experience that no 
 power of moral renovation is inherent in material progress. The spirit 
 of wickedness and the degrading practice of vice are quite as much at 
 home in the godless atmosphere of the great capitals of civilization as 
 amid the barbarous surroundings of Asia and Africa. An environment 
 of luxurious civilization does not change the essential natture of vice, 
 nor give a moral tone or any distinctive elevation of manners to culture. 
 To be sure, there is civilization and civilization, but we are speaking 
 now of a civiKzation which is not Christianized in any degree. 
 
 One of the results of the rapidly developing intercourse between 
 Oriental and Occidental nations will, no doubt, be an attempt to estab- 
 lish a modus vivendi between higher modem civ- 
 can the ethnic religions flization and non-Christian religious society. We 
 
 coalesce with Christian i,, ,,., , ,. 
 
 civilization? shall be likely to witness an attempt at the ab- 
 
 sorption of Western civilization, accompanied by 
 a strict adherence to the religious codes of Hinduism, Buddhism, Con- 
 fucianism, and Mohammedanism. It is doubtful whether the amalga- 
 mation can be accomplished. Christian civilization in its purer and 
 finer features is so much the product of Christianity that the attempt to 
 adopt it on the part of non-Christian cults will be impossible without 
 concessions and compromises which would be revolutionary, and in the 
 end destructive of the ethical and religious supremacy of the alien faith. 
 Conservatism will not yield ; the new liberalism will be obliged to break 
 with the old system ; and the result will be the entrance and dominance 
 of Christian ideas. There is no country in the world where the ex- 
 periment could be made with less of a clash than in Japan. Modem 
 culture and Western methods have been, however, to no small extent 
 
INEFPECTUAL RkMEDtES— causes OF FAILURE 363 
 
 allied with Christianity, and the probability is that a large and 
 dominant infusion of Christian ideals will enter the New Japan to 
 mould and guide her social development. Whether Japan is ready at 
 present to acknowledge it or not, her true national progress and social 
 elevation will depend upon her attitude towards Christianity. She can 
 never inaugurate and foster a Christian, or even any distinctively moral, 
 civilization without Christianity. There is every prospect, however, 
 that she will escape in large measure the terrible blunder of entering 
 upon a new era of progress weighted with the incubus of her old 
 religious cults. 
 
 The lesson of history is clear and convincing. As Wameck says : 
 " The history of all times shows no example of this, that mere civilization 
 has been the means of elevating again a sunken people. . . . Chris- 
 tianity is not the bloom, but the root ; cultiu-e is not the root, but the 
 bloom of Christianity." ^ Japan, as the first Oriental nationality under 
 the stimulus largely of native energy, to break through the barriers of 
 the past and join the march of modem progress, would do well to pon- 
 der seriously this suggestive fact. It is a lesson of deep significance 
 and prophetic import to all the waiting peoples of the non-Christian 
 world about to enter sooner or later upon a modem era of rapid and 
 marvelous development. History and experience unite in the testimony 
 that material civilization does not minister to the immortal nature of 
 man, or carry in itself that secret principle of moral energy which 
 touches and renews society with a purifying and uplifting power.^ If 
 civilization in any land or any age is to have the stamp of nobility and 
 the promise of permanence, it must be founded on morality ; and the 
 only morality which has stood all the tests of experience and history is 
 essentially Christian. 
 
 1 Wameck, " Modern Missions and Calture," pp. 149, 232. Cf. also Cust, 
 " The Gospel Message," pp. 174-186. 
 
 * " Take any one of the attributes of humanity and educate it to the loftiest con- 
 ception of culture, take them all and refine them to their ntmost capacity, and you 
 arrive at something infinitely removed from Christianity. Roman jurisprudence, 
 Greek art, Spartan endurance, French taste, German militarism, English commerce 
 — all are evidences, components, necessities of civilization, but singly or unitedly 
 they in no wise make Christianity. ' My kingdom ' reigns in sanctified affections 
 and heaven-moulded wills and spiritnal aspirations. Amid enervating influences 
 Christianity means manliness ; m antagonism to the false glamour that gleams around 
 self-assertion, it opposes meekness and forbearance ; it signifies the absence of mean- 
 ness, and insists on purity of thought and life ; it demands self-sacrifice in the stead 
 of epicurean indulgence; sympathy, and not stolidity, stoical indifference, or selfish* 
 ness, in any of their disguises. In place of all the artificial castes of societft its 
 
364 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The highest social life of the ancient world was destitute of the 
 distinctive features of Christian civilization. True, there was an 
 extraordinary development of arts and sciences, 
 The status of man in immense and profound systems of speculative phi- 
 Orientai civilizations, losophy, marvelous industrial achievements, mag- 
 nificent architectural triumphs, imposing public 
 works, abounding luxuries, costly amusements, imperial shows, splendid 
 ceremoniaUsm, commercial enterprise, colonial expansion, colossal mili- 
 tary undertakings, vast political machinery, renowned and flourishing 
 municipal hfe— in fact, the most advanced civiUzation of the age was 
 centred and solidified in those great Oriental empires. Where, how- 
 ever, was man himself amid all this pomp and glory of visible achieve- 
 ment? He and the whole social system of which he was a part were 
 crouching in the deep shadows of this great fabric of material splen- 
 dor. With strange and suggestive irony he, himself, seemed to drop 
 out of sight and sink into littleness in the presence of that imposing 
 display of magnificent things. He, the living ego, was submerged in 
 a material maelstrom. Injustice, degradation, misery, cruelty, and vice 
 seemed to reign in his sphere. There was a deification of power and 
 sovereignty as represented in the rulers of men, but there was an awful 
 and crushing humiliation of man himself as represented in the social 
 system. 
 
 Substantially the same status, so far as the experience of common 
 humanity and the prospects of society are concerned, is revealed in the 
 great Oriental communities of to-day. In Japan, China, and India 
 there is an imposing material civilization manifested in exquisite artistic 
 workmanship, a voluminous literature, architectural triumphs, and in- 
 dustrial accomplishments. The Orientals are in many remarkable re- 
 spects workmen who need not be ashamed of their achievements. We 
 can spend an hour in wonderland whenever we have the opportunity 
 of visiting some exhibition of their handiwork. The manual skill of 
 civilization has never put forth finer products than the exquisite enamels, 
 the beautiful dyes, the sumptuous carpets, curtains, and hangings, 
 lovely silks, and curious bric-k-brac in gold and silver and bronze, that 
 come to us from the Orient ; yet this is all, let us notice, from lands 
 
 frontier lines and boundaries, it confesses an all-comprehending brotherhood ; it im- 
 plies a charity so tender and beautiful that it is content to measure a man by his best 
 moods instead of his worst ; it means a life linked on to a higher one ; it imports the 
 weaving into one strong strand of the will of the Great Father and that of the way- 
 ward child."— George H. Giddins, in The Evangelical Magazine, September, 1895, 
 p. 526. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 365 
 
 where humanity sits in the shadow and does its work in an atmosphere 
 of social degeneracy and eclipse. " The attainments of the Chinese in 
 the arts of life," says Dr. S. Wells Williams, " are perhaps as great as 
 they can be without this spring of action [Christianity], without any 
 other motives to industry, obedience, and morality than the commands 
 or demands of the present life. . . . They have probably reached as 
 high a point as they can attain without the Gospel, and its introduction, 
 with its attendant influences, will ere long change their political and 
 social system." i 
 
 The mere introducing of these Asiatic empires into the " sisterhood 
 of nations," or the development of commercial intercourse with Chris- 
 tendom, still less the introduction of Western fa- social reform implies a 
 cilities and inventions, or the exchange of Oriental change in the spirit of 
 
 , _ Asiatic empires, rather 
 
 for Occidental commodities, will not touch the real than their material 
 seat of the trouble.^ The "funded civihzation" civilization, 
 
 of the Occident, even though transported bodily into an Oriental en- 
 vironment, will produce no moral fruitage, and will never accomplish 
 the radical social reforms which are sorely needed.^ There is already 
 a degree of material civilization in China, which might be expected to 
 elevate her socially, if such were its tendency. In the Province of 
 Szechuan and up the Valley of the Yangtse there is a development of 
 agriculture and industrial prosperity which has supported interior China 
 for centuries, with hardly a breath of intercourse with the external 
 world ; but the result of all this is simply China, and a similar outcome 
 may be expected where civilization alone, without Christianity, holds 
 the helm of society. In New Zealand the testimony of the Rev. Sam- 
 uel Marsden, an heroic and devoted missionary pioneer among the Ma- 
 oris, is of the same tenor. " He saw with painful reality that education, 
 contact with Europeans, and increase of knowledge and refinement, 
 did not change the character of the Maoris. Nothing but genuine con- 
 version by the saving power of the blood of Jesus Christ could make 
 such vile and degraded savages into new creatures." * 
 
 1 " The Middle Kingdom," vol. i., pp. 47, 48. 
 
 2 " The introduction of railways will not cause a single idol to disappear. Are 
 the temples in Canton any less crowded because this city has electric light and tele- 
 graph lines? Universities by teaching natural science may cause students to aban- 
 don trust in idols, but will not make them Christians, and the vast millions will 
 continue to worship idols imtil the ineradicable tendency to worship is satisfied with 
 something nobler than human workmanship can supply." — Rev. Albert A. Fulton 
 (P. B. F. M. N.), Canton, China. 
 
 S Smith, " Chinese Characteristics,'' p. 326. 
 * Page, " Among the Maoris," p. 491 
 
366 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 A large amount of significant testimony could be collated in refer- 
 ence to Africa and the failure of civilization to transform the social 
 
 character of savage races.i In the case of the 
 
 la civilization divorced Kaffirs, One of the most promising of the South 
 
 parafea'in Africa? African raccs, it has been made manifest that the 
 
 adoption of so-called civilization without Chris- 
 tianity has produced the most lamentable results, while the acceptance 
 of Christianity has invariably opened up to them a bright and progres- 
 sive career. A notable instance of the failure to accomplish any suc- 
 cessful social reformation on the plane of mere civilization is the effort 
 of Bishop Colenso in Natal. The Bishop proceeded upon the princi- 
 ple that civilization came first, and conversion to Christianity would fol- 
 low. He estabUshed an educational institution, with the express under- 
 standing that religious instruction should not be given. Subsequent 
 experience revealed the hopelessness of this scheme so far as any per- 
 
 1 " For the past two hundred years Portugal has been present on the East Coast, 
 at Inhambane, Lorenzo Marques, Chiloam, Sofala, Senna, and Tete. For one hun- 
 dred years she was assisted in her efforts to civilize by the Roman Catholic agents 
 of the Church, and by the fact that the whole black population, which has always 
 been dense, was held by them in slavery. But in all this effort there was no de- 
 mand for the regeneration of the heart. What are the results ? 
 
 " (l) In all this district very generally cotton cloth has been adopted by the 
 people to wear in the place of skins. This cloth is seldom sewn into garments, 
 and in many cases a single narrow strip hanging between the thighs meets the 
 needs of the wearer. I have seen others whose aspiration towards civilization is 
 expressed by merely a hempen cord around the waist. In general, heathenism 
 has got the better of civilization as regards the use of cotton cloth, for everywhere 
 it is held in the greatest value, not directly for clothing, but as cmrrency for the 
 purchase of wives and for offerings to evil spirits. 
 
 " (2) The natives own probably more firearms to the population than are owned 
 by private individuals to the population in the United States of America. 
 
 " (3) At Inhambane, for instance, there are 5000 licensed stills, all situated in 
 heathen kraals, owned and operated by heathen, who annually produce 100,000 
 barrels of rum. 
 
 " (4) A few have been taught the use of tools, but the number is gradually 
 dying out since slavery was abolished. 
 
 " (5) A woman, married or unmarried, considers it the greatest honor to have 
 a child by a white man. This is a degraded state of society, not to be met with out- 
 side of these Portuguese possessions on the East Coast. 
 
 " It is a remarkable fact that in Lorenzo Marques the only natives who live in 
 upright houses, or otherwise attempt to be civilized, are the converts of the Swiss 
 Canton Mission, who commenced work there only seven years ago. And in 1892 
 the Portuguese Governor at Lorenzo Marques applied to the Swiss Mission for men 
 to send as carriers with their Boundary Commission, because, as he said, ' these are 
 the only natives we can trust not to run away. ' 
 
 " This is a fair representation of what the Portuguese have accomplished for the 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 367 
 
 manent moral influence was concerned.^ Similar testimony could be 
 given in connection with recent history in the islands of the South 
 Seas 2 and among the North American Indians. It seems beyond 
 dispute that the civilization of Indian tribes is impossible without 
 Christianity. 
 
 We have heard much of what has been called the " Gospel of Com- 
 merce,'' and it is true that commercial intercourse, if characterized by 
 integrity and honesty and conducted in the spirit 
 of a conscientious and honorable fairness, is an is there hope in the ad- 
 undoubted aid to higher civilization, and affords vent of commerce ? 
 an opportunity for a noble cooperation with mis- 
 sionary enterprise ; but, on the other hand, taking the world as it is, 
 commerce may be simply a school of fraud, deceit, and selfishness. It 
 may illustrate the worst aspects of unscrupulous greed, and grievously 
 misrepresent the moral principles of Christianity. It may carry, more- 
 over, to non-Christian lands the curses and vices rather than the bless- 
 ings of Christendom. There is commerce and commerce, as Dr. Ellin- 
 wood has shown in his admirable paper on " The Relations of Com- 
 merce and Missions," presented at the London Conference of 1888, 
 and the social ministry of commerce depends almost altogether upon 
 
 social life of the natives in their African possessions." — Rev. George A. Wilder 
 (A. B. C. F. M.), Chikore, Gazaland, Africa. Cf. also article by Poultney Bigelow 
 on " White Man's Africa," in Harper's Magazine, January, 1897. 
 
 " Wherever civilization (so called) has come into Madagascar without the Gospel 
 (on the coast chiefly), degradation, drunkenness, and harm— immense harm — have 
 come to the people ; indeed, some coast tribes are rapidly dying out and disappear- 
 ing, through the vices introduced by wicked white men. There is a very great 
 contrast to all this in the interior provinces, where civilization came hand in hand 
 with Christianity as its fellow-helper and -worker."— Rev. James Sibree (L. M. S.), 
 Antananarivo, Madagascar. 
 
 1 "Report of the London Conference, 1888," vol. i., p. 267; Tyler, "Forty 
 Years among the Zulus," p. 129. 
 
 ^ " Contact with civilization alone does not change the characters and customs 
 of the natives. They may give up these when placed in different surroundings, but 
 they relapse when they are among their own people. The natives who go to Queens- 
 land give up their island customs because they are compelled to do so, but, unless 
 influenced by Christianity, they go back to their former state, even though they have 
 been away from their own islands for many years. They may become useful to 
 traders in the islands, learn a little broken English, and wear some clothing, but they 
 carry on their heathen practices all the same. They may, indeed, attend divine ser- 
 vice, and learn to read, but, until they come to see that Christianity is a better re- 
 ligions system than their own, they will give up none of their heathen customs. 
 When their hearts are touched by the story of the Gospel, they cast off heathen or- 
 naments, seek clothing, cease from practices once dear to them, and live changed 
 lives."— Rev. William Gunn, M.D. (F. C. S.), Futuna, New Hebrides. 
 
368 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 its being pervaded by the spirit of righteousness and honor.i Itmayopen 
 the way for missionary enterprise, but in many instances the reverse is 
 conspicuously true, that missions have prepared the way for the ad- 
 vances of commerce, as has been notably the case in Africa.^ But where 
 commerce alone has been depended upon to accomphsh the task of the 
 reformation of a corrupt and sunken society, it has invariably failed. 
 
 Even what has been named the " Gospel of Cloth " is no guarantee 
 of a higher morality among savage races. Christianity is right in in- 
 sisting upon a proper clothing of the person ; yet 
 Win outside covering native races may be clothed to perfection, but this 
 secure inside cleansing? ^ju not in itself bring them within the pale of de- 
 cency or cleanse their lives from the foulness of 
 immoral practices. It is the testimony of experienced missionaries that 
 among savage races scant clothing is not in itself an evidence of im- 
 modesty, and where vice prevails the attempt to introduce virtue by 
 means of European garments is in vain.' On the other hand, the Chris- 
 tian instincts of modesty and purity, once implanted in the heart, are 
 sure to cleanse the vileness within and to regulate the proprieties of dress. 
 The shallow and mistaken character of the cry, " Civilization first 
 and Christianity afterwards," has been abundantly revealed in the ex- 
 perience of missions. The universal testimony 
 
 The cry, " Civilization ..... 
 
 first and Christianity of missionanes of lifelong observation and ripe 
 afterwards," a false capacity for discrimination is unmistakably of the 
 
 watchword. 
 
 same tenor. Dr. Moffat, after twenty-six years of 
 missionary hfe, writes : " Much has been said about civilizing savages 
 before attempting to evangelize them. This is a theory which has 
 obtained an extensive prevalence among the wise men of this world, 
 
 1 Cairns, in " Report of London Conference, 1888," vol. i., p. 116. 
 
 2 Moffat, " The Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat," p. 433. 
 
 3 The Rev. James Macdonald, in writing of African religions beliefs and 
 social customs, remarks : " So far as our knowledge of African peoples goes, the 
 kind and amount of clothing worn does not seem to have any influence on public 
 morals. The Waganda clothe from head to foot, and put a man to death if he walks 
 about naked in a public place, but their morality is very low, and offences against 
 the Seventh Commandment are common everywhere. The Baris go almost naked, 
 and they are in no way noted for immodesty, but rather the opposite. The Gowane 
 are exceptionally well clad, but this does not prevent their having a custom that a 
 girl may not marry till she has borne a child. The paternity of this child is not in- 
 quired into. That is her own affair, and the husband has nothing to do with it. 
 The child is sold as a slave. Among the Dyoor, with their scanty aprons hardly 
 equal to fig-leaves, domestic affection is very marked, and the Bongo, who wear 
 little clothing beyond a tail hanging down behind, limit their men to a maximum of 
 three wives, a rare virtue in Africa."—" Religion and Myth," p. 219. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 369 
 
 but we have never yet seen a practical demonstration of its truth. We 
 ourselves are convinced that evangelization must precede civilization. 
 It is very easy in a country of high refinement to speculate on what 
 might be done among rude and savage men, but the Christian mission- 
 ary, the only experimentaUst, has invariably found that to make the 
 fruit good the tree must first be made good. Nothing less than the 
 power of divine grace can reform the hearts of savages, after which the 
 mind is susceptible of those instructions which teach them to adorn the 
 Gospel they profess." ^ To this distinguished missionary also is attrib- 
 uted the saying, " Civilization drives away the tiger, but breeds the fox." 
 The impracticable character of this civilization creed of missions is 
 manifest, moreover, in the utter absence of any missionary enterprise 
 based upon this theory of procedure.^ The true attitude of Christian 
 missions towards commerce and all the modern faciUties of transporta- 
 tion, communication, and material progress is to seek to permeate them 
 with the Christian spirit and use them for the moral and social advan- 
 tage of the people wherever happily they are established. 
 
 1 Moffat, " The Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat,'' p. 372. 
 
 2 The question is pertinently asked by Dr. A. C. Thompson, in his " Moravian 
 Missions," " What, now, have the apostles of civilization simple and pure ever done, 
 or what are they likely to do, for savage races? Where are the polished philan- 
 thropists who, in their contemptuous prejudice, repudiating evangelical missions, 
 stand all ready with plow and printing-press to start for the dark places of the earth 
 which are so full of the habitations of cruelty? Let their names be handed in. If 
 any men holding to this mistaken idea, that civilization must precede Christianity, 
 are prepared to put the theory to the test, they are men of Christian principle and 
 devotion. The Dark Continent is not without an experiment of that kind. Eighty 
 years ago the English Methodists, under the leadership of Dr. Coke, entertained a 
 scheme for introducing civilization among the Foulahs of Western Africa. A 
 number of well-disposed artisans of various descriptions were engaged to go out, 
 under the idea that after some progress had been made in civilization missionaries 
 should be sent to preach the Gospel. William Wilberforce and some other leading 
 men of the day lent their patronage, and great expectations were awakened ; but the 
 scheme proved a complete failure. When the agents reached Sierra Leone their 
 courage failed. They had not strength of motive sufficient to carry them out among 
 the savages. The constraining power of love for the souls of perishing heathen men 
 is required to establish even philanthropic men among a barbarous people ; and noth- 
 ing will so soon start such a people on the highroad of social and material improve- 
 ment as the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. In South Africa, civilization had the 
 field for more than a hundred years all to itself; and what did it achieve? It robbed 
 the natives of their lands ; it reduced them to virtual or actual slavery ; it debauched 
 them with ardent spirits ; it formed illicit connections, by which both Europeans and 
 natives are degraded; in the spirit of a Cortez and Pizarro, it has boldly declared 
 that savage Kaffirs should be made to sink before industrious men of a superior 
 race."— Thompson, " Moravian Missions," pp. 408-410. 
 
370 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 III 
 
 State legislation in and by itself, apart from Christianized public 
 sentiment, is not an effective instrument of social regeneration. Legis- 
 lation may originate from only two sources : it may be introduced by 
 a foreign government, ruling either by conquest or in the form of colo- 
 nial administration, or it may spring from the native government itself. 
 
 In the first instance, unless native public opinion is in sympathy 
 with it, it amounts simply to a purely legal pressure from without, 
 which may seciu-e under compulsion the formal 
 Wherein observance of specific rules of conduct. However 
 
 state legislation fails, important and useful it may be, it is lacking in 
 inspiration and fails to command the hearty assent 
 and cooperation of native society. It may enforce its exactions while 
 it lasts, but it cannot create a sympathetic spirit. It concerns itself, 
 moreover, with the prohibition of such external acts as may constitute 
 an offense in the eye of the law or that may be prosecuted as a crime. 
 It is in the power of law to punish criminals, but it cannot eradicate 
 the criminal instinct and purpose. Its punishments are not necessarily 
 potent even as a deterrent. No human expedient can change the dis- 
 position which is back of the overt act. As a matter of political ex- 
 pediency it is natural that foreign legislative administration should be 
 very cautious and hesitant in pushing any State legislation which con- 
 flicts with native opinions and customs of a religious or social charac- 
 ter, unless there be the most imperative legal and moral necessity for so 
 doing. Even the British Government in India at first, in violation of 
 its own rule of neutrality, adopted the gravely compromising policy of 
 patronizing Hinduism by participating officially in its revolting public 
 ceremonies, and making grants from its treasury for the support of 
 Hindu temples. Happily, however, another spirit now prevails, but 
 not without considerable pressure from Christian sentiment at home, 
 and still there are strange concessions to native religious customs, 
 especially the obscenity of certain observances of Hinduism and of 
 some of its spectacular ceremonialism. The policy of absolute neu- 
 traUty in reUgious matters still obtains, and is likely to do so for a long 
 time to come. As a method of government this is no doubt wise, and 
 would be unexceptionable were it not for the attitude of moral com- 
 promise which it involves. It serves tg illustrate, however, the prac- 
 
Rev. John Wilson, D.D., founder of Wilson College. Wilson College, Bombay (F. C. S.) 
 
 American Baptist Mission College, Ongole. (Formally opened as a College, February 7, 1894.) 
 
 Two Missionary Colleges in India. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 371 
 
 tical difficulty of social regeneration by law where native sentiment and 
 immemorial custom stand in the way.^ 
 
 In the second instance, where native legislation is supposed to be 
 operative, it may be said to be unprecedented to find the cause of 
 moral and social reform taken up by native non-Christian governments, 
 unless the stimulus has come either from Christian missions or from the 
 example and influence of civilized nations.^ The instinct of reform 
 does not originate among savages, nor with barbarous or even semi- 
 civilized governments. Stagnation, indifference, and heartless tolera- 
 tion of evil customs have for centuries been the rule in the annals of 
 non-Christian countries. Moral regeneration as illustrated in Christen- 
 dom is a bright exception in universal human experience. The origi- 
 nating impulse has been planted in society by the power of Christianity 
 before any legislative reforms have been enacted. For the fullest con- 
 firmation of this statement we have simply to turn to the history of 
 Eastern nations, such as Japan, Korea, China, India, and other partially 
 enlightened peoples. The step forward in each case where it has oc- 
 curred has been by virtue of influences and impulses arising from con- 
 tact with Western Christendom. 
 
 That great and permanent reforms have been accomplished by 
 Christian powers in connection with colonial administration should be 
 acknowledged with satisfaction and gratitude ; but 
 it should be noted also that this has been done where reform attends 
 
 , . t- ^. , , .., - colonial administration 
 
 under the stimulus of Chnstian principle and its spirit is christian, 
 humanitarian instincts, and it may be questioned 
 whether it is not the exception rather than the rule that even the colo- 
 nial policy of Christendom has concerned itself very much with the 
 moral and social progress of subject races. The British rule in India 
 is the most conspicuous example of what a Christian power can ac- 
 complish for the material and social benefit of a people among whom 
 the responsibilities of colonial administration are assumed. While there 
 is still much to be done, yet the record of reforms in India which have 
 been effected by the direct agency of British rule is a noble chapter in 
 the administrative annals of Great Britain. The list itself, as given by 
 Dr. George Smith in his " Life of the Rev. Dr. Wilson of Bombay," is 
 a revelation of the social barbarism of India in the early part of the 
 
 1 The Dawn in India, July, 1895, p. 62. 
 
 2 " The Christian thought, the Christian tradition, the Christian society, are the 
 great, the imperial thought, the tradition and society of this earth. It is from 
 Christendom outwards that power and influence radiate, not towards it and into it 
 that they flow."— William E. Gladstone. 
 
372 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL l'KUUK£.:ii> 
 
 present century. Among these reforms may be mentioned the follow- 
 ing : the abolishment of sati, or widow-burning ; the prohibition of in- 
 fanticide ; the stopping of human sacrifices ; legal restrictions against 
 suicide ; the forbidding of barbarous cruelties, such as the impahng of 
 criminals or tearing them apart by elephants, the serious maiming of 
 women and thieves, the extraction of evidence by torture, the trial by 
 ordeal, hook-swinging, and cutting by knives ; the making of slavery a 
 crime; the non-recognition of caste distinctions before the law; the 
 raising of the age of consent; the legalization of the marriage of 
 widows; the establishment of a system of government education. 
 This is a record which must be regarded with intense interest by every 
 lover of justice and freedom. Yet, with no Christian leaven at work 
 in Indian society, can we have any guarantee that all these abomina- 
 tions would not be speedily revived if legal pressure were withdrawn ? 
 The facilities of modern civiHzation which have been introduced, the 
 courts of law, and the admirable system of police for the preservation 
 of public order established throughout India, indicate also the benefits 
 which attend Enghsh rule. 
 
 The history of British colonial administration in other parts of the 
 world has many bright aspects and commendable features, yet the 
 Christian student of British colonization cannot but be pained by many 
 evidences of a dominant policy of political or commercial imperialism, 
 and of some shameful lapses from the standards of enlightened Chris- 
 tian rule. We doubt not, however, that the Christian element in 
 British administration will appear more and more as time goes on. 
 There are many English officials who regret most keenly the short- 
 comings revealed in the colonial policy of England, and look with the 
 highest favor upon Christian missions as a cooperative agency of. in- 
 calculable value and promise in filling out the deficiencies of govern- 
 ment in the sphere of moral and humanitarian reform. 
 
 Striking instances, however, may be noted which indicate either 
 the incapacity or the failure of legislation, even in the colonial admin- 
 istration of Christian Powers, to reach the social 
 luustrationsofthefaii- jjgeds of non-Chrfstian peoples. This may arise 
 
 ure of purely legislative , ,. . . 
 
 pressure. from the hmitations of self-imposed neutrality in 
 
 regulative legislation concerning all religious and 
 many social matters, as in the case of the British rule in India above 
 referred to ; or there may be a culpable failure to act where aggressive 
 legislation or a modification of existing policy is called for. The opium 
 traffic is an illustration. There may still be failure arising from the 
 inoperative character of legislative enactments. In India, for example. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 373 
 
 notwithstanding the official suppression of sail, the legalization of the 
 marriage of widows is practically a dead letter, because of the failure 
 of Hindu public opinion to sanction or respond to the spirit and aim 
 of the enactment. The same may be said of the effort to regulate the 
 question of child marriage and the age of consent, and to guarantee 
 entire rehgious liberty throughout Indian society. The attempt to 
 inaugurate sanitary measures has often failed, by reason of the uncon- 
 querable prejudice of the native populations, as was illustrated recently 
 in connection with the plague at Hong Kong, and to a lesser degree 
 in India. Such objectionable customs as foot-binding are almost 
 beyond the reach of legislation, unless some radical change of public 
 sentiment shall secure cooperation on the part of native society. 
 
 A study of the colonial policy of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and 
 Portugal reveals the strange indifference of these nations to the moral 
 and social welfare of their foreign constituencies. On the contrary, 
 national ambition, commercial advantage, political expediency, and 
 reckless disregard of the moral responsibilities involved in colonial 
 enterprise, mark to a deplorable extent the history of European contact 
 with and government of inferior races.^ In a chapter entitled "A 
 Study of French Colonial Administration," in his recent volume, " The 
 Peoples and Politics of the Far East," Mr. Henry Norman presents 
 many instructive and significant facts bearing upon this subject. The 
 history of French aggressions in Siam, Algeria, and Madagascar sup- 
 plements by facts of a similar tenor what is said there. The story of 
 European protectorates in Africa is yet in its earliest chapter, but there 
 are even now startling anomalies of administration and legislation, which 
 dim somewhat the otherwise brilliant outlook for African progress.^ 
 
 No doubt Providence uses human government as a preparation for 
 the advances of His kingdom. Rome was an instrument to accomplish 
 a work of preat value in preparing the world for 
 
 " ..... The historic dignity of 
 
 the advent of Christianity ; so the British rule m the " Pax Britannica •■ 
 India will be used by Providence to facilitate the '■• »he development of 
 
 ■^ India, 
 
 progress of Christianity in that vast realm. The 
 
 " Pax Britannica " will no doubt occupy a place of historic honor in 
 
 the religious and social history of India, equal, if not superior, to that 
 
 1 For an historical summary of the darker features of European colonial contact 
 with inferior races, see Warneck, " Missions and Culture," pp. 239-306. 
 
 2 See an article on "German Policy in Central Africa," in The New Review, 
 February, 1897, for a searching expos6 of the spirit and practice of German admin- 
 istration in East Africa. Cf. also article in The Saturday Review, January 30, 1897, 
 p. 10& 
 
374 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which has long been accorded to the " Pax Romana " as a preparation 
 for Christianity. The noble part to be taken by British rule over 
 a united India, in anticipation of the development of an Indian 
 Christendom, is as yet but faintly realized. The preparatory and co- 
 operating external instrumentalities would be of little value, however, 
 were the majestic spiritual forces of missionary enterprise lacking. The 
 true, ideal status in this connection is a hearty, sympathetic, and mutu- 
 ally respectful cooperation between the legislative forces of Christian 
 government and the spiritual and moral energies of Christian missions. 
 Missions, on their part, may be greatly facilitated and aided by a gen- 
 erous and sympathetic government policy. Government, on the other 
 hand, may be helped where it is weakest by the moral backing and 
 spiritual inspiration that can come alone through Christian teaching 
 and living. Notable utterances on the part of distinguished Christian 
 officials in the colonial service of England could be quoted in advocacy 
 of this policy of cooperation and mutual support.^ 
 
 1 At a missionary meeting in Brisbane, Australia, Sir W. Macgregor, the Ad- 
 ministrjitor of British New Guinea, referred to mission work in substance as 
 follows : " He had been several times asked since he had been in Brisbane if the 
 missionaries did any good among the natives. The question surprised him, but he 
 had no hesitation in answering it. His mind was perfectly clear on the subject, and 
 he looked on missionaries as being absolutely indispensable in a country like New 
 Guinea. In a new country like Fiji or New Guinea secular education was entirely 
 in the hands of the missionaries. The Government of Fiji or the Government of 
 New Guinea could do nothing in that direction. In his judgment, the work which 
 the Wesleyan missionaries had done in Fiji in the way of education was perhaps 
 greater than their wonderful work in converting the natives. But apart altogether 
 from the question of secular education, he had no doubt whatever that good govern- 
 ment and order would never be permanently established unless they had Christianity 
 as their basis. He wanted to see order established in New Guinea on the basis of 
 Christianity, and he knew it would then survive him. That could only be brought 
 about with the assistance of the missionary societies." — Quoted in Work and 
 Workers in the Mission Field, July, 1892, p. loi. 
 
 Sir Charles Elliott, when Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, expressed his judg- 
 ment as to the value of missions as a cooperative agency in the realization of the 
 highest aims of Christian government in India, in the following memorable lan- 
 guage : " The point that I would insist on to-day is this : that, whether successful 
 or not, the work of offering Christianity to the people is one that ought to be per- 
 severed in, since without that we should fail to utilise one large section of the influ- 
 ence which the European ought to have on the Asiatic mind. I hold that it is the 
 part of missions to carry on and complete the work which England is placed here 
 by Providence to effect, and which would be imperfect without them. The Govern- 
 ment of India can do much ; if it could not, we who are its servants could not feel 
 the pride and enthusiasm with which we serve it. . . . It can bestow education on 
 the masses, and can even offer, with a doubtful and hesitating hand, a maimed and 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 375 
 
 IV 
 
 Patriotism is not a competent or trustworthy guide in social re- 
 form. As regards morality, wisdom, and practical insight, it may be 
 utterly misleading, spurious, and superficial. It 
 has no moral guarantee and no proper standard '^ patriotism a safe 
 of intelligence. It may be simply a reflection of reform ?^°^'* 
 
 the existing status, and represent only a blind and 
 prejudiced adherence to opinions and customs in themselves objection- 
 able and injurious. It cannot alone be safely trusted to promote the 
 welfare, happiness, and progress of society. 
 
 It is true that enlightened, unselfish, and high-toned patriotism, 
 under the culture of intelligence and Christianity, is a beautiful and com- 
 mendable trait which has had an inspiring mission in the world. Often 
 has such been fruitful in heroism, self-sacrifice, and high devotion to the 
 welfare of humanity. There is, however, a false and sinister patriotism 
 which may work only disaster and prove a hindrance to true progress. 
 It may be narrow and clannish, and at times only another name for 
 feudahsm. It may be inspired with military ambition and the desire 
 of conquest. It may act hastily, thoughtlessly, imprudently, under the 
 unsafe stimulus of pride or national conceit, or swayed by the stormy 
 impulses of passion. It may be so destitute of moral discrimination as 
 to advocate, defend, and promote outworn traditions and serious social 
 evils simply because they exist and have been characteristic of past 
 national history. It may become so identified with a false religious 
 system as to seek the promotion of a socially debasing cult and to limit 
 reUgion within national lines. Even at its best it is rarely, if ever, an 
 advocate of moral and religious change, but rather seeks to solidify and 
 perpetuate existing religious beliefs. It is usually regarded among non- 
 Christian nationalities as unpatriotic to embrace a new rehgious faith. 
 This is especially true in Japan, where patriotism, or an intense national 
 
 cold code of morals. But it can go no further, and there its influence stops. Con- 
 sider what a vast hiatus this stoppage implies. Government cannot bestow on the 
 people that which gives to life its colour and to love of duty its noblest incentive ; it 
 cannot offer the highest morality, fortified by the example of the Divinely Perfect 
 Life. It is here that the missionary steps in to supplement the work of the official. 
 ... I make bold to say that if missions did not exist, it would be our duty to invent 
 them."— Quoted in The Church Missionary Intelligencer, April, 1894, pp. 249, 250. 
 
376 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 spirit, is a militant influence in opposition to the progress of Christian- 
 ity. Patriotism may minister to pride, self-conceit, and national com- 
 placency, as in China, and to a considerable extent in India, so that 
 nothing new from without is welcome, though it may be evident that 
 it will be beneficial and reformatory. There is a certain kind of 
 patriotism in vogue at present among Oriental nationalities, which, if 
 it had its own way, would doom them indefinitely to the dominion of 
 all the miseries, evils, and barbarous anachronisms which have ruled 
 them in the past. 
 
 Intelligent native opinion in India has detected this false note of 
 patriotism, and denounced it as social treachery and in reality a barrier 
 
 to true national advancement. Sir Madhava Row 
 The temper and trend has condensed much sohd sensc and wisdom into 
 of patriotism in India, the aphorism, " What is not true is not patriotic." i 
 
 A native Indian who has been influenced by the 
 intelligent study of principles and practices outside and above the range 
 of Hindu thought, and who sees in them something better and more 
 hopeful than prevalent native customs, must run the gantlet of bitter 
 criticism on the part of so-called Hindu patriots, if he ventiu'es to ad- 
 vocate the new in preference to the old, or the foreign in preference to 
 the native. Illustrations of this are found in the Hindu joiunals, and 
 are strongly deprecated therein.^ The late Mr. Manomohun Ghose, 
 an Indian barrister of distinction, remarked that " he felt a legitimate 
 pride in the ancient civilization of India, but he was bound to say that 
 an undue and exaggerated veneration for the past was doing a great 
 deal of mischief. It was quite sickening to hear the remark made at 
 almost every public meeting that the ancient civilization of India was 
 superior to that which Europe ever had." ^ India, in fact, is accepting 
 the educational culture, the sciences and arts of foreign nations, and 
 even the most intense Hindu patriot would not stultify himself by de- 
 
 1 The Hindu, a native journal of Madras, says : " We have' observed of late a 
 tendency on the part of some of our educated countrymen to apply their mental 
 powers for irrationally reactionary purposes. Social customs and institutions which 
 are evil in their results, and are the product of past simpler and less civilized condi- 
 tions, have received elaborate defence, and even certain merits have been attached 
 to them." 
 
 The Subodha Patrika, of Bombay, another native journal, remarks in a similar 
 strain: " Patriotism is now taken to mean a blind praise of all that is ours, and a 
 strong denunciation of all that is foreign. It matters not whether a custom is good 
 or bad ; it is ours, and we must praise it." 
 
 2 " Papers on Indian Social Reform," section on " Caste," pp. 51-55. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 55. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 377 
 
 daring his preference for the old and obsolete methods of conveyance 
 and intercommunication, or advocate the crude and ignorant conceptions 
 of Hindu geography, science, and mythology. The extension of this 
 adoption of truth, knowledge, and modern inventions, to the realm of 
 social hfe and religious enUghtenment is, however, quite as much the 
 part of true patriotism, and will in the end prevail. In the meantime 
 it is clear that either national prejudice or reactionary opposition, and 
 even hatred, to everything foreign places much of the so-called patriot- 
 ism almost, if not quite, outside the circle of helpful agencies for social 
 reform. EnHghtened and guided by the broadening and ennobhng 
 teachings of Christianity, we may expect that it will, in the future his- 
 tory of missions, be a powerful instrument of cooperation, national ref- 
 ormation, and Christian development. 
 
 The moral forces of ethnic religions are incapable of accom- 
 plishing an uplifting and beneficial social transformation. The source 
 from which, above all others, it would be natm'al 
 to expect a saving social influence is the religions The social value oj 
 of the Orient. When we consider the antiquity ethnic religions, 
 of these great ethnic faiths, the air of dignity which 
 surrounds their origin, their immense influence in Oriental society, their 
 historic continuity, the reverence which has been accorded them by 
 successive generations, the extent of their sacred literature, and the 
 existence therein of many moral principles and precepts of true wisdom 
 and excellence, we naturally incline to regard them as the guarantee 
 of a helpful and beneficial ministry to society. They certainly repre- 
 sent the best results of human effort, subsidizing mental acumen, en- 
 feebled moral instincts, and the dim light of nature to solve the problems 
 of existence, of at least to illumine somewhat their darkness. So far 
 as intellectual research, thoughtful penetration, and religious insight 
 are concerned, they represent, at least in their original ideals, the con- 
 summation of non- Christian philosophy, the concentration of rational 
 wisdom, and the most diUgent, painstaking, even agonizing, effort of 
 the Oriental mind to grasp the higher harmonies of truth, to hft the 
 brooding mysteries of life, and oiler a way of escape from its sorrows, 
 temptations, and perils. Here surely, then, we might say that we 
 have a stronghold of hope and an effective instrumentality for the social 
 salvation of mankind. 
 
378 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 As we study, however, the theoretical constitution and the practical 
 outcome of these marvelous religious systems, while we are bound to 
 give them credit for saving society from still deeper lapses into social 
 degradation, yet we cannot but be impressed with the unsatisfactory 
 character of their historical results. We must here confine our atten- 
 tion especially to the consideration of the practical fruits rather than 
 the philosophical content of these ethnic cults. Like the great sys- 
 tems of classical paganism, they have had a long probation and an un- 
 disturbed opportunity to work out the highest and best product of which 
 they are capable. They have held not only the balance of power, but 
 they have had undisputed possession, free scope, and unchallenged 
 dominion for ages ; and yet is the Oriental world really, except as 
 Christianity and Western civilization have entered it, morally much 
 in advance of the state of the Roman Empire at the coming of Christ? 
 Christendom, as the social product of Christianity with its humble en- 
 trance into history and its lack of worldly support, may be contrasted 
 with the Orient, where the ethnic systems have had every advantage 
 of traditional prestige, political patronage, and social 6clat. The in- 
 tellectual, moral, social, political, and spiritual map of the world to-day 
 is significant evidence of the differentiation of Christianity as an uplift- 
 ing power among men.i 
 
 Study, moreover, the characteristics of the average Oriental, or of 
 Oriental society en masse, where we may expect to find, if anywhere, 
 the fruitage of the great religious forces of the East. 
 
 The intellectual status of Oriental society is significant. Of course 
 
 we expect that there will be ignorance of modern Occidental sciences, 
 
 arts, inventions, and discoveries in the realm of 
 
 Oriental character knowledge, but we hardly expect to find such a 
 
 put in evidence. prevailing barrenness of intellectual discipline and 
 
 culture as characterizes the teeming masses of 
 
 Eastern lands. If we scrutinize the attainments of the learned castes, 
 
 the hterati, the doctors of philosophy, law, and theology, we are im- 
 
 1 " Despite the poetic fancy which invests non-Christian religious systems with 
 an aureole of sanctity and beauty, they have been weighed, and found wanting in 
 power to meet the deepest wants of mankind. Whatever their rightful place may 
 have been under Providence in the education of humanity ; whatever the virtues they 
 are calculated to promote among peoples in a certain stage of mental or material 
 development ; however beautiful the theory, or elevated the ethics, which some of 
 them embody or enjoin, we cannot accept them as a substitute for Christianity, or 
 withhold its higher light from those who sit beneath their shadow. Nor is this 
 merely a question of dogmatic theory ; it is one of world-wide practice involving the 
 happiness or misery of many millions. As the result of her travels over an immense 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 379 
 
 pressed with the extent of their researches, but also with the dryness 
 and futility of their learning. We are amazed at the puerilities and the 
 profitless and irrelevant aspects of their traditional knowledge. We 
 are dazed at the vanity and vacuity of their speculations and at the 
 dearth of wholesome thought. There seems to be a characteristic fail- 
 ure in the power of logical and precise thinking. The imagination and 
 memory are abnormally developed, but the faculties of exact reasoning 
 are seriously impaired. There is a certain acuteness, quickness, and 
 mental shrewdness, but little depth, consistency, or poise, and an in- 
 veterate tendency to crookedness of mental process and careless in- 
 exactitude. 
 
 If we tiu-n now to moral qualities, the first impression is that of con- 
 fusion and uncertainty. Moral perceptions are vague and lax. Egre- 
 gious blunders are recognized, and even acknowledged, which are 
 nevertheless persisted in with singular fatuity and unconcern. We 
 meet with a curious incapacity for the personal appropriation and self- 
 application of moral obligation, and an everlasting shifting and shuffling 
 in the presence of moral responsibility, a conspicuous failure to recog- 
 nize the force of principle as a motive and constraint in conduct, an 
 enormous exaggeration of the personal over the moral factor in social 
 and political life, an acceptance of theory with a failure to practise, a 
 readiness to assent with a hesitation to act, a large fund of abortive 
 convictions, a serious collapse in moral and spiritual stamina. There 
 is external zeal, but internal hollowness and insincerity. Men are 
 adepts in the arts of deceit, with the most easy-going and undefined 
 sense of obligation to truthfulness. The Oriental character is almost 
 the precise antithesis of the Puritan. Duty, except as it is identified 
 with self-interest, is a dim and inoperative conception. The disposition 
 to throw aside and shift responsibihty is almost universal and resistless. 
 The fact of temptation is the prevailing excuse and apology for evil- 
 doing. The Old Adam, in the sense of another irresponsible personal- 
 ity, is the historic burden-bearer of Oriental sins. If he fails, fatalism 
 is a refuge. Stalwart will-power is the exception in relation to all evil 
 solicitations. Easy-going compliance is the rule. The moral natinre 
 as a whole, if not in a state of collapse, is universally feeble, except as 
 
 tract of country,— the Polynesian Isles, Japan, Southern China, the Malay Penin- 
 sula, India, Ceylon, Cashmere, Western Thibet and Central Asia, Persia, Arabia, 
 and Asia Minor,— Mrs. Bishop speaks of non-Christian lands as a great and howling 
 wilderness, without hope because without God in the world. It is a mischievous 
 delusion to hold that the sobriety of Islam or the ethics of the Light of Asia can re- 
 store, as Christianity can, the wastes of sin, shame, and sorrow."— y-i* Quarterly 
 Review, January, 1894, pp. 54, 55. 
 
380 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 morality is identified with asceticism and external conformity to cere- 
 monial ritual. 
 
 In the realm of religious experience there is the most chaotic and 
 capricious conception of sin and the nature and measure of personal 
 accountability. There is an exaggerated respect for external require- 
 ments, and slight consideration for internal states. The spiritual realm 
 is pervaded by an atmosphere of legalism. Religion is clung to and 
 practised with persistency and zeal, but in a thoroughly ceremonial 
 spirit, while the practical duties of piety are a singular mixture of 
 moral laxity and profitless exaction. Much of the most religious life 
 of the Orient is specially objectionable in its influence upon society. 
 
 The personal qualities that are characteristic of an Oriental are com- 
 placency, pride, self-confidence, and conscious assurance of the supe- 
 riority of himself and his environment. He has wrought diligently in 
 his own strength for his own glory, and, in his estimation, he has suc- 
 ceeded. He delights in his historic past, and is hardly conscious that 
 his present is any the less worthy of admiration. He needs a thorough 
 toning up in intellectual sincerity and moral manhood, and some lessons 
 in humility. The trend of heredity has been marked by long and steady 
 deterioration, so gradual that he does not recognize it, and is quite un- 
 conscious that he, himself, is a representative man in this respect. 
 
 It is an exceedingly difficult and perhaps invidious thing to attempt 
 to speak thus in general terms of average character in the Orient. 
 There are no doubt many individual exceptions. 
 Its brighter aspects while national characteristics may present some 
 and possibilities. differentiating features ; yet as an all-round state- 
 ment we venture to express the conviction that 
 there is nothing which can be seriously challenged or pronoimced un- 
 seemly and unfair in the estimate. A residence of twenty-one years 
 in personal contact with Asiatics, and a somewhat extensive study of 
 Orientalia, have given the author at least a basis for forming his own 
 judgment, which he offers for what it is worth. He would be the last 
 to deny or wish to obscure the fact that there are also many charming 
 and winning traits of character in Oriental manhood and womanhood, 
 such as patience, gentleness, courtesy, hospitality, gratitude, loyalty in 
 friendship, and much genuine and hearty domestic affection. There 
 has been a strong hereditary tendency to hospitality in the social life of 
 Asia, and the ethics of human relationships have been prominent in 
 much of its religious life. The social feelings and habits of the better 
 classes in the Orient are, as a rule, far removed from the barbarism of 
 savage races. There is every reason, moreover, to rejoice in the fact 
 
Building- of the Young Men's Christian Association, Tokyo, Japan. 
 Building- of the Young Men's Christian Association, Madras, India. 
 
 Two Y. M. C. A. Buildings in the East. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 381 
 
 that humanity in the East is capable of high culture, stalwart morality, 
 earnest evangelical piety, and beautiful refinement, combined with 
 genuine simplicity of personal character. The Providence of God no 
 doubt has still in store a national training, a social discipline, and a 
 personal regeneration of the Asiatic world, which will prepare it in the 
 future to be the scene of some of the brightest and noblest triumphs 
 of Christianity. 
 
 It will be instructive, in this connection, to glance at the social his- 
 tory of some of the more prominent ethnic reUgions, and discover, if 
 possible, the secret of their inabiUty to work out 
 the regeneration of Eastern society. There must a study of the social 
 
 - . , „ . 1 . ,. tendencies of Eastern 
 
 be m each case a sufficient explanation for such religions, 
 
 a characteristic and universal failure to lift human- 
 ity to the plane of a higher civilization. Can we discover this, and 
 indicate it in its proper context as a satisfactory explanation of the 
 disappointing result? 
 
 Let us glance for a moment at Buddhism. It has had an immense 
 following of not less than one quarter of the human race. Its manifest 
 weakness is in its failure to establish and enforce 
 moral obhgation, and if it fails here, so far as the Buddhism and its so- 
 individual is concerned, it must fail also in the ciai forces, 
 realm of social responsibility. Its conception of 
 God, if indeed any definite conception can be recognized, is at best 
 vaguely impersonal. When you search for a personal Deity, He is not 
 to be found. In its doctrine and worship it is a highly wrought system, 
 but without that living touch with the divine which is the essence of 
 religion. " God not in it " will be its historic epitaph. If God is not 
 in it, then God's ideal of man and of human society is absent. Its 
 early history revealed a genuine impulse in the direction of charity, 
 brotherhood, and humanitarian ethics, and a missionary zeal which was 
 phenomenal, as well for its patience and gentleness as its heroism, but 
 without the underlying motive and the staying power which were ne- 
 cessary, and without the capacity to work a moral change in man. 
 Buddhism, where it does not merely represent a refined selfishness or a 
 bald asceticism, is now a riotous idolatry, around which is gathered a 
 hireling hierarchy. No religion can Uve on an ancient and long worn- 
 out reputation. It must be judged by the test of its practical outcome 
 in the lives of its followers. Buddhism proposes an escape from the 
 miseries of life, but by means of asceticism and self-immolation rather 
 than by moral victory over them. Its great problem is the universal 
 sorrow ; its great woe is existence ; and it suggests as a method of es- 
 
382 CHktSTlAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGKKSS 
 
 cape a process of personal sublimation and ecstatic preoccupation, 
 which will in the end reduce human nature practically to a vacuum. 
 
 So far as its attitude to society is concerned, its practical tendency 
 is to soar out of touch with it rather than stoop to the alleviation of its 
 miseries. It is a system of spiritual monasticism, which presents as its 
 crowning achievement a withdrawal from social responsibility within 
 the shell of a happy unconsciousness of the world. The extinction of 
 militant desires, especially all that may be classed as intemperate and 
 lustful, is its highest purpose. Constructive non-existence of the per- 
 sonality as a social factor is the philosophical and practical goal of 
 Buddhism. So far as any service to society is concerned, its present 
 attitude is negative rather than positive, since " it turns away from the 
 world on principle." Human nature in its noblest and most essential 
 social gifts and capacities, and in its crowning prospects, is, according 
 to the Buddhist ideal, reduced to the mystical exaltation of the indi- 
 vidual. Its social creed is the isolation or withdrawal of self for the 
 benefit of self. It is a policy of scuttling, and leaving society to sink 
 beneath the waves. The highest and choicest hopes of Buddhism do 
 not contemplate the social weal, but rather the individual attainment of 
 Nirvana or Arahatship, involving at once the deprivation and desertion 
 of society.! 
 
 In brief, the characteristic shortcoming of Buddhism as a ministry 
 
 to the social life of the East is its practical /ara^wV of the personality 
 
 as a social dynamic — its attempt at the oblitera- 
 
 The contribution of tion of the individuality as a working factor in 
 
 Buddhism to society isa j » ' i 
 
 paralyzed personality, society ; and hence the extinction of Its usefulness.2 
 
 Not so much in its theoretical conception, but in 
 
 its practical outcome, it has been found to be lacking in the altruistic 
 
 impulse, which seems ever to gravitate into egoism. " From the first," 
 
 1 Cf. Bishop Boyd Carpenter's Bampton Lectures on " The Permanent Elements 
 of Religion," pp. 150-154. 
 
 2 To quote the words of Principal Reynolds : " Not by under-estimating the 
 reality of self, but by conferring upon it an infinite value and significance, did Jesus 
 free those who believed in Him from the greatest burden ; not the burden of exis- 
 tence, but the burden of sin. Jesus Christ abolished distinctions, not by emphasiz- 
 ing the unreality of souls, but by investing all souls with a new meaning, which in 
 itself was more to be desired than all the temporary and vanishing shadows of 
 earthly greatness. Buddha turned men's eyes away from the sorrows of life. He 
 would have men think them out of existence by a species of intellectual training. 
 Christ took all our sorrows and sickness and death upon Himself, that He might 
 take them away ; and He pronounced His benediction on the poverty, the mourning, 
 /he hunger, the sorrow, the death, which are the handmaids to the sonl in its passage 
 into the perfect life."— Reynolds, " Buddhism," p. 22. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 383 
 
 writes Professor Marcus Dods, " Buddhism reserved its highest bless- 
 ings for the man of contemplation, who could pass through the world 
 as a stick floats down the river— unattracted to either bank." Love 
 for others and corresponding service, although down in the books, have 
 not been and cannot be insisted upon in the spirit and power of Chris- 
 tian altruism. " The contrast between the Gospel of Christ's salvation 
 and the law of Buddha's deliverance is so great that words cannot 
 measure it. The moral culture which schools the mind into utter pas- 
 sivity and indifference to all things and persons is the very antipodes 
 of the spiritual culture which loves and blesses all the works of God, 
 which embraces all souls, and is reconciled to the Supreme Will." i The 
 proposed deliverance of Buddhism is from the misery of restless desire 
 rather than from sin. Its programme contemplates the deliverance of 
 self rather than of others. Its outcome is rest and ecstasy for the man, 
 not as a member of a perfected society, but as one who has escaped 
 into untroubled isolation. Its supreme desire is the individual Nirvana, 
 that state of mind in which the personality is virtually extinguished and 
 the spirit is in a state of poise and rest. It is a final goal of existence 
 where there is no further prospect of " becoming " to trouble the soul. 
 The possible round of rebirths is ended, and a blissful serenity and 
 security are henceforth the happy portion of the possessor of Arahat- 
 ship.2 This experience, it may be noted, is possible in connection 
 with the present earthly existence. Is it any wonder that the record 
 of Buddhism as a ministry for the elevation and renovation of human 
 society is marked by failure ? 
 
 In like manner let us consider briefly the influence of Confucianism, 
 and see if we can detect the secret of its social shortcomings. At the 
 outset we are impressed with its natural caf)acity to 
 influence society, and if any mere ethical code can Confucianism and its 
 contain the secret of social regeneration, Confuci- social roie. 
 
 anism might be expected to reveal it. The spe- 
 cial sphere which it expressly seeks to regulate is society. It fixes its 
 attention upon the five relationships, between ruler and subject, father 
 and son, husband and wife, elder and younger, and friend with friend. 
 The five regular constituents with which it endows our moral nature are 
 named as " benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and sincer- 
 ity," and it requires " affection between father and son, concord between 
 husband and wife, kindness on the part of the elder brother and defer- 
 
 1 Reynolds, " Buddhism,'' p. 34. 
 
 2 Professor T. W. Rhys Davids, "Buddhism: Its History and Literature," 
 pp. 151, 173, 175. 
 
384 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ence on the part of the younger, order between seniors and juniors, 
 sincerity between friends and associates, respect on the part of the ruler, 
 and loyalty on that of the minister; these are ten righteous graces 
 equally binding on all men." ^ There is nothing here which Christian- 
 ity would repudiate; on the contrary, rather would it sanction and 
 enforce them all. Much emphasis has been given to the fact that the 
 ethics of Confucianism are on a high plane. This is true and should 
 be frankly acknowledged. Indeed, it is to be expected that the human 
 reason, in laying down an elaborate programme of reciprocal duties, if 
 it were true to itself and guided by the light of natural religion and 
 human experience, would instinctively accentuate these points; and 
 not only China, but the world, may be thankful that an ethical code 
 like this has dominated so many millions of our fellow-men for centu- 
 ries. It is not the simple code of Confucian ethics which has paralyzed 
 China's social development; it is rather the fact that it lacks motive 
 power of the right kind ; it is deficient in vitalizing forces.^ 
 
 The more we study this monumental system of ethical religion the 
 more its fatal weaknesses come to light. Where is God? we inquire. 
 Where is the ultimate basis of authority and the supreme motive of 
 duty? To be sure, there is an annual representative worship of Heaven 
 on the part of the Chinese Emperor, in which he takes the place of his 
 people and is their official substitute in rendering homage to that in- 
 definite entity which is called Heaven and stands for God. The people 
 as a whole assume an attitude of unconcern and irresponsibility towards 
 the Supreme Power. In fact, the attempt on the part of a Chinese 
 subject to offer public worship to Shangti, in accordance with the 
 prescribed ritual, would be counted an act of high treason. There is 
 among the masses no inteUigent recognition of authority. There is no 
 motive which is not, in the last analysis, resolved into self-interest, and 
 
 ^ Legge, " Christianity and Confucianism Compared," p. 12. 
 
 2 " The evidence we have to offer is that of experience. We find that Confuci- 
 anism, Buddhism, and Taoism have not made the corpse live, but only garlanded it 
 with flowers. There are good points and teachings in these religions, but they are 
 simply precepts without living power to raise the people. The educated Confucian- 
 ist is ignorant, proud, and conceited. He only knows what Confucius taught (and 
 does not practise it), and what Confucius did not teach is not knowledge. Go to a 
 Buddhist temple and question the priest. He knows little or nothing of his own 
 religion, cannot interpret the prayers he chants or read the books of his own creed, 
 but leads an idle, vicious life. Like priest, like people. These religions have not 
 lifted a single burden or borne a single sorrow. They have plunged the people into 
 hopeless night as regards the future life, and have given no power to overcome sin 
 in the present one."— Rev. Joseph S. Adams (A. B. M. U.), Hankow, China. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 385 
 
 there is a conspicuous lack of moral accountability. Man is a law unto 
 himself; but as this has never satisfied the intuitive demands of the 
 moral nature, a substantially polytheistic substitute has been found in 
 the ancestral worship of China, and also in the prevalent superstitions 
 of nature-worship.i 
 
 We note, too, the excessive overloading and overdoing of the ethical 
 code of duty with supplemental precepts and concessions represen- 
 tative either of expediency, weakness, or folly. On the one hand, is 
 undue laxity ; on the other, over-stringency. The rights and interests 
 of the individual are slighted in deference to the State and the family. 
 Excessive power is conceded to rulers and parents. Reverence for 
 ancestors develops into idolatrous worship. The living, on the other 
 hand, especially women and the weaker members of the family, are re- 
 garded as inferior, and treated with an undue assumption of power; 
 hence the forced betrothal of children, the evils of polygamy, infanti- 
 cide, or the heartless committal of girls to a life of misery. The prac- 
 tical outcome of this human adjustment of details reveals a marked 
 absence of the delicacy, the wisdom, the tenderness, the considerate- 
 ness, and the justice of the Christian spirit. Confucianism stumbles 
 and blunders so hopelessly in the practical application of its code that 
 the issue, so far from securing the happiness and welfare of its follow- 
 ers, with a benignant guardianship of the rights of the helpless and the 
 dependent, has perpetuated the historic shortcomings of Chinese society. 
 We cannot but note also the absence of altruism and the lack of a spirit 
 of sacrifice in social life. There is little appreciation of man as man. 
 Selfishness dominates the whole attitude of the Confucianist, not only 
 towards humanity, but towards his own environment, and often towards 
 even his own family. There is a notable absence of a personal exam- 
 ple for guidance and comparison. Confucius himself, according to his 
 own statements, was imperfect.^ The literature which Confucianism 
 has put forth is destitute of spiritual power and magnetic inspiration. 
 It is cold, and powerless to move and quicken and vivify the soul. The 
 practical outcome of Confucianism fails to realize even its own ideal. 
 While there are exceptional characters, and men of amiable and gra- 
 
 1 " All the gods of China," writes the Rev. Arthur H. Smith, " may be said to 
 have been dead men, and by the rite of ancestral worship it may be affirmed that, in 
 a sense, all the dead men of China are gods. . . . There can be no doubt whatever 
 that as a nation the Chinese are polytheistic. There is also the worship of nature. 
 Temples to the gods of wind, thunder, stars, sun, and moon abound. Any kind 
 of a divinity which seems adapted to exert a favorable influence in any given direction 
 will be patronized." 
 
 2 Legge, " Christianity and Confucianism Compared," p. 31. 
 
386 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 cious characteristics in the ranks of its followers, yet they are manifestly 
 not the average product of the system. As a man among men the 
 Confucianist is lacking in moral sincerity, in the altruistic purpose, in 
 humility and the spirit of sacrificial service. As a religionist he is 
 either polytheistic or agnostic.^ 
 
 The emptiness of Confucianism appears in its annihilation of a divine 
 personality as a source of authority, its undue estimate of the moral 
 power of ethical conceptions, its homage to rule and precept as alone 
 sufficient guides to society. It has exalted ethics as in themselves the 
 personification of authority and an all-sufficient motive.^ It has per- 
 verted them by accommodating interpretations, accretions, and misap- 
 plications, until they have led on to idolatry, and become the teachers of 
 half-truths, or practical reversals of their original ideals. Its sign of fail- 
 ure is its exaltation of self as the interpreter and exponent of moral obliga- 
 tion. It, therefore, lacks the authority, the motive, the wisdom, and the 
 personal touch of Christianity. The divine personality is in total eclipse ; 
 the human personality stands alone and helpless as its own master. 
 
 We find, therefore, that the crucial defect of Confucianism as a social 
 
 force is its impoverishment of the personality, its non-recognition of its 
 
 needs. It is a religion of shortcomings, of partial 
 
 The contribution oJ , , , ,, , , ^ , t, .,. 
 
 Confucianism to so- truths, of half-power, of Undefined responsibiuty. 
 ciety is an impover- ^g g, code, while excellent so far as it goes, it be- 
 
 ished personaUty, . . , . ,. 
 
 comes in the end narrowed, distorted, misdirected, 
 and misshapen. Its practical result, as revealed in the social history 
 of China, is an imperfectly developed, partially cultured, feebly inspired, 
 
 1 Smith, " Chinese Characteristics," p. 316. 
 
 2 " One of the ablest Oriental scholars has said that China has the best moral 
 creed outside of the inspired code. Scattered throughout the voluminous writings 
 of recognized authority are profound utterances of high ethical value, applicable to 
 every class, from emperor and prince to magistrate and scholar, trader and laborer. 
 Millions daily study these books, in which rulers are exhorted and admonished to 
 adhere to justice and righteousness in dealing with the people ; and no nation on the 
 earth knows better than the Chinese that ' evil has an evil recompense, and good 
 has a good recompense.' But what do the facts disclose as to the ethical fruit of 
 these wise admonitions? China stands forth to-day as one of the most conspicuous 
 examples of the utter worthlessness of mere natural ethics to elevate and purify a 
 nation. They know, but they practise not. The power of the seen and tangible 
 outweighs all considerations when balanced against the possibilities of future com- 
 pensation. Scores of sayings may be produced from their classics in which prince 
 and people are urged to justice and propriety, and yet there is not on earth a more 
 corrupt set of rulers than those who to-day hold power in this vast empire."— Rev. 
 Albert A. Fulton (P. B. F. M. N.), Canton, China. 
 
 " I see the results of Confucianism, perhaps the best human system of ethics the 
 world has had, after a trial on a large scale for two millenniums, and, after this long 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 387 
 
 morally blinded, and socially moribund humanity. The human reason 
 has taken a gigantic leap in its own strength, but it has fallen short, and 
 the result is Confucianism. It is the great historic illustration of the 
 failure of a human ethical code, with no acknowledged sovereignty 
 back of it, no constraining love in it, interpreted and applied by the 
 imperfect wisdom and the moral weakness of man. 
 
 Let us turn now to Hinduism and scrutinize its record as a social 
 stimulus and help to mankind. It was born in a process of nature- 
 worship ; it was nursed in pantheism ; and it has 
 matured into stupendous ceremonialism and a Hinduism and its so- 
 colossal system of idolatry. The better divinities ='*• record, 
 of its earlier history have been superseded by evil 
 ones. It has developed in its downward trend the most tyrannical and 
 overshadowing sacerdotalism in the religious history of the world. The 
 priestly caste has never assumed such masterful supremacy over the mys- 
 teries of religion and the life of men as has been revealed in the triumph 
 of the Brahman. This has been its spiritual and philosophical history for 
 two thousand years. Buddhism at length attempted its impossible rdle of 
 reform, but Brahmanism held its own, and the modem era of Hinduism 
 began. It has since grown by absorption, accretion, and expansion 
 into the most gigantic and debasing parody of true religion in existence. 
 Into its Pantheon have come the most monstrous representations of 
 Deity that the human mind has conceived. The thirty-three gods of 
 the Vedas have grown to hundreds of millions. Siva, Durga, Rama, 
 Krishna, and Kali have taken their places at once of honor and shame 
 in the temples of Hinduism. Truly its last state is worse than its first. 
 With Krishna, Siva, and his supposed wife Sakti, and a multitude of 
 other divinities, have developed the nameless features of Hindu wor- 
 ship, the orgies of its festivals, and the moral taint of its most sacred 
 places. "The worship of Siva, of Vishnu, and the other popular 
 deities," writes Professor Max Muller, " is of the same, nay, in many 
 cases of a more degraded and savage character than the worship of 
 Jupiter, Apollo, and Minerva ; it belongs to a stratum of thought which 
 is long buried beneath our feet ; it may Hve on, like the lion and the 
 tiger, but the mere air of free thought and civilized life will extinguish 
 it." 1 In its principles and practices it represents at once the reUgious 
 
 trial, China, like the woman in the Gospels, is only growing worse. Is it not fair 
 to infer that her case is hopeless apart from Christianity? But Christianity can cure 
 all her ills, and it will."—'R.sv. Chauncey Goodrich, D.D. (A. B. C. F. M.), Tung- 
 cho, near Peking, China. 
 
 1 " Lecture on Missions," p. 47. 
 
388 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 patronage of vice, the enthronement of tyranny, the exaltation of 
 cruelty, the consummation of ceremonialism, the adoration of sacerdo- 
 talism, the utmost assumptions of caste, and the most profound depths 
 of idolatry. No religious development of history has succeeded in es- 
 tablishing such lines of separation between man and man as are revealed 
 in the system of caste. A more complete reversal of the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity cannot be imagined. The touch, even the shadow, of a member 
 of a lower caste is pollution to one of higher rank. In the esteem of 
 high-caste Hindus, cows are holier than their brother men, and com- 
 panionship with them is less offensive than the impure presence of men 
 and women who are separated from them by the intolerance of caste.i 
 Principal Caird has truly said: "The system of caste involves the 
 worst of all wrongs to humanity, that of hallowing evil by the authority 
 and sanction of religion." What shall we say, moreover, of the status 
 of woman in Hindu society, the position she occupies, and the wrongs 
 she endures, which are directly instigated by the social code of the 
 Hindu? 
 
 Hence, if we look for the most characteristic note of failure in the 
 
 social influence of Hinduism, we shall find it in its degradation of the 
 
 personality as a social factor. This appears in the 
 
 The contribution of system of caste, in the treatment of woman, and 
 
 Hinduism to society is . . . , , _ . . 
 
 a degraded personality. "1 the emasculation — almost the destruction, of 
 morality. Its doctrine of transmigration, linking 
 man with the animals, reduces personality to its lowest affinity and robs 
 it of hope. It is immensely to the credit of the Hindu that he has 
 any manliness left, and it is a wonder that Hindu society has survived 
 at all.2 
 
 There is a growing spirit of social reform in the more intelligent 
 circles of Hindu society apart from any profession of Christianity. It 
 has, however, been largely under the stimulus of the various movements 
 known as Somajes, and is itself an indirect result of the entrance of 
 Christianity. It is a question how these reform movements will suc- 
 ceed without a closer touch with a living Christianity. Very com- 
 
 1 "As a leading Hindu paper of Southern India said not long since of the degraded 
 Pariahs, so we may say of all the social evils that afflict India : ' Hinduism can do 
 nothing for them; Christianity must reach them.' " — Rev. T. E. Slater (L. M. S.), 
 Bangalore, South India. 
 
 2 Sir H. S. Maine has said: " On the educated native of India the past presses 
 with too awful and terrible a power for it to be safe for him to play or palter with it. 
 The clouds which overshadow his household, the doubts which beset his mind, the 
 impotence of progressive advance which he struggles against, are all part of an in- 
 heritance of nearly unmixed evil which he has received from the past.'' 
 

 O X 
 
 
 pq 
 
 O 
 
 < 
 
 X 
 
 Hi 
 
 < 
 
 W 
 
 
 X 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES-CAUSES OF FAILURE 389 
 
 petent observers express grave doubts as to their permanent effi- 
 ciency.i 
 
 Passing on to the history of Mohammedanism, let us see if we can 
 note the secret of its social bankruptcy. Islam originated in part in 
 the effort to reform society spiritually and socially. 
 Its progress was marvelous, and the secret of it iBiam and its social 
 was not simply the renaissance of its great theo- failure, 
 
 logical doctrine, but the stalwart wielding of its 
 sword. Its rehabilitation of the doctrine of the unity of God, and its 
 mighty faith in the sovereign decrees of destiny, would no doubt have 
 awakened a spiritual impulse in the minds of its elect votaries ; but its 
 claims would have failed to secure any extended recognition had they 
 not been enforced by a military ardor which carried the Saracen hosts 
 through Western Asia and along the northern shores of Africa, until 
 they threatened Europe alike in the East and in the West. Nothing 
 could have been more attractive to the Arabian plunderers than the 
 entrancing dreams of world-booty, which seemed about to be realized 
 in the militant progress of the first century of Islam. Its two watch- 
 words of merit and reward had a magical influence over its followers. 
 
 1 " For more than twenty years I have watched the various religious movements 
 which, primarily inspired, as it seems to me, by Christianity, have sought to reform 
 Indian religious thought and Indian social life and conditions ; and, making all 
 allowance for any bias or prejudice I may as a Christian missionary possess, I am 
 forced to the conclusion that nothing but Christian life and principle can permanently 
 effect and consolidate even social reforms. The failure of such movements as that 
 of the Brahmo Somaj and the Prarthana Somaj to effect any widely spread social 
 change is* now acknowledged. A later movement of a socio-religious kind in con- 
 nection with the Arya Somaj has appealed to Hindu national feeling and tradition in 
 the north and west of India, and has succeeded in gaining followers on account of 
 its wider design and apparent retention of the old basic Hindu beliefs, while reject- 
 ing later and additional Puranic accretions more or less directly condemned by the 
 intelligence generated by European science. This is a movement among Hindus and 
 for Hindus only, and, among other objects, aims at the abolition of idolatry, and 
 modifications of caste, and various social arrangements in the direction of greater 
 liberty. Of all the religious or socio-religious organizations I know in this country, 
 with perhaps the exception of Mohammedanism, it shows the greatest antipathy to 
 Christianity, to the Founder of Christianity personally, and to His teachings, and if 
 allowed free scope would, I am persuaded, be a distinct source of danger in the 
 State. None of these movements, so far as I can judge from their history and re- 
 sults, can at all compete with Christianity as a " reforming agency which can reach 
 to the roots of the evils which afflict human society ' ; they are all too limited in their 
 scope, have no elements of permanency in them, and fail to operate as a universally 
 elevating influence to raise all sorts and conditions of men from lower to higher 
 planes of social or moral or spiritual life." — Dr. James Sommerville (U. P. C, S.), 
 Jodhpore, Rajputana, India. 
 
390 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Its enticing emoluments and its moral compromises are attractive con- 
 siderations to the average Oriental. It is a combination of a simple 
 religious creed, such as it is, for the soul, and easy-going license for the 
 lower nature. The Moslem devotee bows the knee and worships in 
 good form the God whom he adores, and at the same time bows his head 
 and kisses with heartfelt satisfaction the sins that he loves. In either 
 case the salutation is devout and genuine, a characteristic feature of his 
 rehgion. His fast of Ramadan for a whole month once a year is made 
 up of rigid abstinence during the day and unchecked license during the 
 night. The Islamic code is a strange mixture of the supersensual and 
 the sensual, of the potency, grandeur, and dignity of spiritual doctrine 
 intermingled with a grovelling carnality and weak hcense of the flesh. 
 It is a strange and bewildering appropriation of religious teaching, with 
 a debasing transference and readjustment of it to the service of mate- 
 rial conquest and fleshly debauch. The Moslem warrior seemed to re- 
 fresh himself with the inspiration of truth, and at the same time to fire 
 his soul with the ravishments of sensual delights. While fighting " in 
 the ways of the Lord " he draws near to Paradise, but this militant 
 exaltation is no barrier to the seductive enjoyments of earth. 
 
 At the close of the era of conquest the real social history of Islam 
 may be said to begin, and it has been marked by a notable absence of 
 progress in political civilization or of moral training and culture in the 
 individual and the family. As regards its relations to the civihzed 
 world, it is a gigantic and demoralizing social incubus, with no power 
 of cooperation, adaptation, and moral adjustment. Its fixed tradition- 
 alism, its legislative rigors, its ceremonial exactions, its spirit of despo- 
 tism, its degradation of woman, its sanction to slavery, and its cruel 
 fanaticism are impassable barriers between Islam and progressive cul- 
 ture. The Koran invariably calls a halt to civilization. It fixes in- 
 exorably the bounds of freedom with an intolerable narrowness and 
 rigor. It is clearly a provincial product of an ignorant and semibar- 
 barous environment. It is a compromise with the spirit and practice 
 of the rude, undisciplined religious and social systems of Arabia. It 
 has not only ostracized, it has made impossible, some of the sweetest 
 and noblest features of Christian civilization. It cannot enter the realm 
 of modem refinement and adjust itself therein. If Islam steps in, the 
 Christian home must step out. If Islam assumes control, freedom 
 must die. If the Moslem becomes the guide and the guardian of social 
 morals, refined womanhood must flee as for its life. The history of 
 Armenia during the past year or two has been a significant commentary 
 pn the social as well as the political spirit of Islam, and has revealed in 
 

 "J 
 
 2 
 
 O 
 
 O 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES—CAUSES OF FAILURE 391 
 
 lurid, hellish light the desolating, devouring, unnamable possibilities of 
 cruelty in Islamic fanaticism. 
 
 What then shall we designate as the characteristic note of weakness 
 and failure in the social mission of Mohammedanism? It is found in 
 its enslavement of the personality and its non-recog- 
 nition of the principle of rehgious and social free- '''*'« contribution 
 dom. Mohammed sealed the doom of Islam when enslaved personality, 
 he unsheathed the sword. It has become the exe- 
 cutioner among religions. Its method is conquest by arms, and the 
 death-warrant for apostates. Its Koran demands intellectual slavery ; 
 its harem requires domestic slavery ; its State implies and enforces both 
 a religious and a civil slavery. Its great doctrine of fatalistic submis- 
 sion to inexorable sovereignty has been made to include man in his 
 relations both to the Koran and to the civil and military authority rep- 
 resented in the Khalif, and finds its consummation in its supremacy 
 over woman as both the possession and the slave of man.i True to its 
 instinct of domination and power, this degrading slavery of woman has 
 been transplanted to the Paradise of Islam, where no nobler function 
 is assigned her than to be the possession of man without stint of number.^ 
 
 1 " It is this sensaal and degraded view of woman that destroys to so great an 
 extent the good influence which the better part of the teaching of Islam might exert 
 in the East. So long as women are held in so light an esteem, they will remain 
 vapid, bigoted, and sensual ; and so long as mothers are what most Muslim mothers 
 are now, their children will be ignorant, fanatical, and vicious. ... If the mother 
 is ignorant and vicious, the son cannot form a high ideal of womanhood, and thus 
 is barred off from the chivalrous spirit wherewith alone a man may reach to the 
 highest love : that 
 
 ' Subtle master under heaven. 
 Not only to keep down the base in man. 
 But teach high thought, and amiable words. 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame. 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man.' 
 
 " The Muslim has no ideal of chivalry like this to make his life pure and honour- 
 able ; his religion encourages an opposite view, and the women among whom he is 
 brought up only confirm it."— Stanley Lane-Poole, "Studies in. a Mosque," 
 pp. lo8, 109. 
 
 2 Principal Fairbaim's judgment is at once final and true : " The god of Mo- 
 hammed . . . spares the sins the Arab loves. A religion that does not purify the 
 home cannot regenerate the race ; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave 
 humanity. Motherhood must be sacred if manhood is to be honourable. Spoil the 
 wife of sanctity, and for the man the sanctities of life have perished. And so it has 
 been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted savage tribes ; it has depraved and 
 barbarized civilized nations. At the root of its fairest culture a worm has ever lived 
 
392 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 What now can be said briefly of Shintoism and its social promise? 
 It is doubtful whether we should really call it a religion, as it seems to 
 have no doctrinal creed, no clearly defined moral 
 Is there in Shintoism code, HO Standard but the dictates and desires of 
 a renewed 'society ? human nature itself. It was but a phantom of a 
 religion before Buddhism supplanted it in Japan 
 in the sixth century, and since then it seems to have gone into retire- 
 ment and desuetude. Its recent revival would seem to give it ofiicial 
 importance, but it is impossible that it should hold its own in the New 
 Japan. As a State religion it is already an anachronism. The spirit 
 of to-day among that alert and progressive people can never coalesce 
 with the Shintoism of the past.i It is too much an instrument of intel- 
 lectual slavery and sacerdotal tyranny. Whatever may be its ideals, it 
 is a narrow, forceless, and ineffective social programme for humanity. 
 What can we say, moreover, of Taoism and the influence of that 
 mysterious philosopher of the Taou (or way), and his little book, which 
 is the tiny basis of the colossal system which has 
 Has Taoism the secret Sprung from it? Laotse is the magician of Chi- 
 ef social progress ? uese religious history. His system, like others, was 
 comparatively pure at its origin, but has developed 
 into a vast phantasmagoria of charms, incantations, superstitions, ghostly 
 fancies, and mystical jugglery. It is virtually a religion of quackery, 
 although, like Confucianism, it has a mixture of grain and chaff. Its 
 moral code, however, is destitute of force, and touches society with no 
 genuine uplift. It has a minimum of good mixed with a maximum of 
 evil, and as an instrument for saving society it lacks the hfe, the energy, 
 the wisdom, and the common sense which would give it success. We 
 can only leave it as too manifestly incompetent to claim further attention. 
 We sometimes hear of Jainism, which originated, like Buddhism, as 
 a revolt from Brahmanism, and has led an obscure and precarious 
 existence in Western India. It is atheistic in spirit, 
 Is there a social and seems to cherish as the magnificent aim and 
 gospel in Jainism ? engrossing occupation of its followers the abstain- 
 ing from inflicting any injury upon animals, and 
 especially from taking their life. Its moral code enjoins five duties 
 and forbids five sins. The duties are described as, " first, mercy to 
 all animated beings ; second, almsgiving ; third, venerating the sages 
 while living, and worshipping their images when deceased ; fourth, con- 
 that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mohammed the hope of 
 man, then his state were hopeless ; before him could only lie retrogression, tyranny, 
 and despair."—" The City of God," pp. 97, 98. 
 1 Grififis, " The Religions of Japan," p. 97. 
 
INEFFECTUAL REMEDIES— CAUSES OF FAILURE 393 
 
 fession of faults ; fifth, religious fasting." The sins are named as, " first, 
 killing ; second, lying ; third, stealing ; fourth, adultery ; fifth, worldly- 
 mindedness." In practice, however, the emphasis has been laid upon 
 the preservation of animal life. In this respect they have tithed the 
 "mint, anise, and cummin," and neglected the "weightier matters of 
 the law." In a little volume published in India they are referred to as 
 follows : " They care more to preserve the life of a dog, a hen, a dis- 
 eased and decrepit horse, even of an ant, a bug or ilea, than the life 
 of a man. When Kathiawar came under British jurisdiction, the Jains 
 stipulated that cattle were not to be killed for the EngUsh troops ; but 
 female infanticide had existed for untold generations without any effort 
 on the part of the Jains to check it. They are enjoined not to 
 eat in the open air after it begins to rain, nor in the dark, lest they 
 might unconsciously swallow a fly. They must not leave a liquid open, 
 lest an insect should be drowned. Vayu Karma is keeping out of the 
 way of wind, lest it should blow insects into the mouth. The priests 
 carry a broom to sweep insects out of the way of harm as they walk or 
 when they sit down, and a mouth-cloth to prevent them from entering 
 the mouth. The cots of the Jains are often infested with bugs, as they 
 will not kill them. Some of the richer Jains pay poor men to lie for a 
 time in their beds, allowing the bugs to feed on them, that they may 
 not be troubled when they go to sleep. The Jains look upon them- 
 selves as very meritorious on the above account, though many of 
 them are extortioners and oppress greatly those who come within 
 their power." i Surely the insignificant social scope of Jainism is 
 manifest. 
 
 Parsism is a relic of the past,^ having hereditary affinities with the 
 ancient religion of Zoroaster, which was nature-worship developed in 
 a monotheistic rather than a polytheistic direction. 
 In its doctrine of Duahsm it engaged in an heroic can we hope 
 
 ° ° that Parsism is equal 
 
 Struggle to preserve the character of God from to the task? 
 
 degradation and defilement, but, after all, the 
 Creator is largely identified with His works. The Parsis, howevei, are 
 not themselves fire-worshippers. It also as a social force has been 
 
 1 "The Principal Nations of India" (Madras, Christian Literature Society), 
 pp. 105, 106. 
 
 ''■ " The religion of Zoroaster, —the religion of Cyrus, of Darius and Xerxes,— 
 which, but for the battles of Marathon and of Salamis, might have become the re- 
 ligion of the civilized world, is now professed by only one hundred thousand souls 
 —that is, by about a ten-thousandth part of the inhabitants of the world. During the 
 last two centuries their number has steadily decreased from four to one hundred thou- 
 sand, and another century will probably exhaust what is still left of the worshippers 
 of the Wise Spirit, Ahuramazda."— F. Max Muller, " Lecture on Missions," p. 46. 
 
394 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 "weighed in the balances, and found wanting," although hardly any 
 other Gentile religion has so many excellent features and can so easily 
 receive the regenerating influences of Christianity. Parsism has in it 
 much of hope, since with less of confusion and convulsion than others 
 it can receive the pure moraUty and the spiritual teachings of Christ. 
 
 Of nature rehgions as they exist at present in the world, in various 
 
 forms of animism, spiritism, fetichism, and pagan idolatry, with its bloody 
 
 and licentious rites, there is no necessity that we 
 
 The universal verdict of , i j • 
 
 history as to the social should Speak here. They can never lead society 
 outcome of aU fg ^ higher level and teach it the secrets of regen- 
 
 non-Christian religions. , ^_^. ... . ,. . 
 
 eration. There are still remnants of rehgions 
 which might be named, — some of them relics of the past, and others 
 bom of present struggle and revolt from ancient systems, — which, 
 however, only serve to confirm the universal verdict of failure which 
 characterizes the social mission of all non-Christian faiths. Sikhism, 
 for example, Sufism, Babism, Drusism, the religion of the Aztecs, the 
 Toltecs, and some ancient cults of South America, the religions of the 
 aboriginal tribes of North and South America, the Teutonic, Celtic, 
 and Slavonic heathenism — all have either had their day or are now on 
 trial, and only one verdict is possible concerning them : they have failed 
 to do for man what Christianity has succeeded in accomplishing and 
 will yet more perfectly and universally achieve. Whatever of partial 
 excellence may be in them is found more perfectly in Christianity. The 
 characteristic shortcoming of them all is their imperfect presentation of 
 truth, their lack of motive power in the right direction, their superficial 
 moral guidance, and the hopeless supremacy of the evil over the good. 
 They need the benign touch, the spiritual discernment, the noble ideal, 
 the moral energy, and the all-conquering element of personality so 
 characteristic of Christianity. It should not be claimed that they all 
 have been entirely powerless for good and have had no worthy moral 
 influence ; still less should it be asserted that they have exercised no 
 beneficent power in history and have had no valuable message to 
 mankind. They represent the best philosophical, moral, and rehgious 
 product of the human intellect, feeling after God in the darkness of 
 ignorance and in the uncertain light of natural religion, with whatever 
 help may have been derived from the residuum of revealed truth, 
 which has never been entirely banished or obliterated from the Gen- 
 tile mind. They are the fruit of struggle and aspiration and of that 
 imperfect adjustment which the human reason is capable of accom- 
 plishing in the realm of rehgious doctrine and practice. That they 
 contain a measure of original truth cannot be denied ; but it is a truth 
 
Photos by Elliot and Fry^ and T, C. Turner dr" Co. 
 
 Bp. Hodges, of Travahcore and Cochin, India. Bp. Tucker, of East'n Equatorial Africa. 
 
 The late Bp. Parker, of East'n Equatorial Africa. The late Bp. Hill, of West'n Equatorial Africa^ 
 
 Bishop Phillips. Bishop Tugwell. Bishop Oluwole. 
 
 All of Western Equatorial Africa. 
 
 A Group of Missionary Bishops (C. m. S,) 
 
INEFFECTlfAL REMEDIES-CAVSES OF FAILURE 39^ 
 
 that has been misinterpreted, misapplied, overlaid with human vagaries, 
 and prostituted to evil ends.^ The natural religious development of 
 man has not been in the direction of truer vision and higher attain- 
 ment, but rather towards lower views and baser practices. How sharp 
 is the contrast between religions of human and those of divine origin! 
 
 Christianity comes as a supreme gift from God, full of truth, 
 energy, and unfailing capacity, to change the current of religious life 
 in the direction of regeneration and progressive 
 advancement towards a perfect individual and Christianity God's 
 social development. Both before and after the '* ^sVcil'ty."'""" 
 Incarnation, whether in its preparatory stages or 
 in its New Testament consummation, it is a contribution of spiritual 
 and moral power introduced into the individual experience of man, 
 and so into the general progress of society, in the form of a fresh, 
 vivifying, and energizing religious environment, under the influence of 
 which God and man cooperate in a movement towards perfection. 
 The secret of the noblest social destiny is in Christianity, and the 
 sooner the world recognizes it the better. 
 
 There is no escaping the conviction that the judgment of Paul as 
 to the religious value and moral standing of classical paganism is as 
 true to-day in substance and spirit concerning 
 modem ethnic faiths as it was of contemporary paui's diagnosis of 
 antichristian creeds in his age. There has been heathenism stni true, 
 perhaps a kaleidoscopic transposition of philoso- 
 phic principles, a rehabilitation and relabelling of external ceremoni- 
 alism, and some readjustment of immorality to its modern environment ; 
 but the evidences of lineal descent and spiritual heredity are unmistak- 
 able. The " vain imaginations " are still to the front, the " foolish heart 
 [or imderstanding]" is still " darkened," the professedly " wise " are none 
 the less " fools," the " creature " is still honored rather than the " Crea- 
 tor," the " things that are not fitting " are still in their place of promi- 
 nence, and they are admired and defended by the heathen apologists of 
 to-day with the same strenuous zeal and stout-hearted complacency as 
 of old. But the victory of Christianity, although it may seem to come 
 slowly and " not with observation," is as assured now as it was then. 
 
 We have thus passed in review the prominent, in fact the only pos- 
 sible, rival forces which can be brought into comparison with Christian- 
 ity as possessing any supposed capacity for effecting social changes of 
 
 1 Cf. " The Religions of the Orient," an address by the Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, 
 M.D., D.D. 
 
396 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 a helpful and elevating nature. We have seen good reason to regard 
 them as in themselves hollow and ineffective. Some of them are use- 
 ful, indeed even valuable, as instruments and ad- 
 
 The Tvatchword of mis- . -_,,..,, 
 
 sions is Christianity, juncts of Chnstianity; Dut Without its Cooperation, 
 both for the individual and Uninfluenced by its pervading spirit, they are 
 
 and 4or society. o r t } 
 
 doomed to failure. Education, material civiliza- 
 tion, State legislation, patriotism, and ethnic religions are not in them- 
 selves gifted with the power of social regeneration. Each in its own 
 way fails at vital and crucial points. There is manifest need of a nobler 
 and higher ministry to society from some authoritative and inspiring 
 source, and that this ministry is provided and freely offered in Chris- 
 tianity is a cheering fact to which we shall in the next lecture give 
 more special attention. 
 
LITERATURE AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE III 
 
 To avoid repetition, many volumes mentioned in the other lists are not included in this, although 
 they would properly find a place in the literature of Lecture III. The reader is therefore requested to 
 consult the other bibliographies as in some instances supplementary to the one given below. 
 
 Adams, Brooks, The Law of Civilha- Missions. N. Y., Dodd, Mead & Co., 
 
 tion and Decay: An Essay on History. 1875. 
 
 L. and N. Y., The Macmillan Co., Steele, Rev. Robert, The New Heb- 
 
 1896. rides and Christian Missions, with a 
 
 Dorchester, Rev. Daniel, The Prob- Sketchof the Labour Traffic. L., James 
 
 lem of Religious Progress. Revised Nisbet & Co., 1880. 
 
 edition. N. Y., Hunt & Eaton, Warneck, Dr. Gustav, Modem Mis- 
 
 1895- sions arid Culture. E., R. W. Hunter, 
 
 Featherman, a.. Social History of the 1882. 
 Races of Mankind. 5 vols. Trubner YouNG, Robert, The Success of Chris- 
 Si. Co., \?&\-?&. tian Missions. L., Hodder & Stough- 
 
 Grau, Rev. R. F., The Goal of the Hu- ton, 1890. 
 man Race; or. The Development of Civ- 
 ilization : Its Origin and Issue. (Trans- BUDDHISM 
 lated by Rev. J. G. Deimler and Rev. 
 
 W. St. Clair Tisdall.) L., Simp- Beal, Rev. S., Buddhism in China. 
 
 tin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., L., S. P. C. K., n. d. 
 
 1892. Berry, Rev. T. S., Christianity and 
 
 Huntington, Bishop F. D., Social Buddhism: A Comparison and a Con- 
 Problems and the Church. Cambridge, trast. L., S. P. C. K., n. d. 
 Mass., The Church Social Union, Carus, Paul, The Gospel of Buddha. 
 
 1895. Fourth edition. C, The Open Court 
 Japp, a. H., Master Missionaries: Publishing Co., 1896. 
 
 Chapters on Pioneer Effort throughout CoPLESTON, Reginald Stephen, Bud- 
 
 the World. L., T. Fisher Unwin, dhism. Primitive and Present, in Ma- 
 
 1883. gadha and in Ceylon. L. and N. Y. , 
 
 Laurie, S. S., Historical Survey of Pre- Longmans, Green & Co., 1892. 
 
 Christian Education. L. and N. Y., Davids, T. W. Rhys, Buddhism: A 
 
 Longmans, Green & Co., 1895. Sketch of the Life and Teaching of 
 
 Lessing, G. E., The Education of the Gautama. L., S. P. C. K., n. d. 
 
 Human Race. Fourth edition, revised. Davids, T. W. Rhys, Buddhism • Its 
 
 (Translated by W. Robertson.) L., History and Literature. N. Y., G. P. 
 
 Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Putnam's Sons, 1896. 
 
 1896. Davids, T. W. Rhys, Lectures on the 
 Mackay, T., Methods of Social Reform: Place of Buddhism in the Development 
 
 Essays, Critical and Constructive. L., of Religious Thought. L., S. P. C. K., 
 
 John Murray, 1896. 1881. 
 
 Mahaffy, Rev. J. P., A Survey of Edkins, Rev. J., Chinese Buddhism. 
 
 Greek Civilization. Meadville, Pa., L., Trubner & Co., 1880. 
 
 Flood & Vincent, 1896. Hardy, R. Spence, Manual of Bud- 
 
 VKTnsoHiS.Vi., Gospel Ethnology. L., dhism. L., Williams &Norgate, 1880. 
 
 The Religious Tract Society, 1889. I-tsing, Record of the Buddhist Religion 
 
 Seelve, Rev. Julius H., Christian as Practised in India and the Malay 
 
 397 
 
398 
 
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SYNOPSIS OF LECTURE IV 
 
 The need of a supernatural remedy for the evils of non-Christian society is as- 
 serted and advocated, and the adaptation of Christianity to virage a beneficent and 
 effective crusade against the moral lapses and social cruelties of heathenism is 
 argued, under the following heads : 
 
 I. Christianity alone offers the perfect and final solution of the problem of sin. 
 Its method of expiation and its assurance of justification and forgiveness contrast 
 favorably virith every expedient known in the religious history of man. 
 
 II. It provides a new and powerful motive in the moral experience of mankind. 
 
 III. It suggests new views of society. Its estimate of the individual man brings 
 it into sharp and significant contrast with the pagan conception, which is substan- 
 tially the prevailing one in the non-Christian world of to-day. 
 
 IV. The code of social ethics advocated by Christianity is an immense improve- 
 ment upon that which prevails under any ethnic system of religion. The ethical 
 systems of Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism are examined 
 and compared with the social ethics of Christianity. The superior ideals and the 
 beneficent fruitage of the Christian code are demonstrated. 
 
 V. Christianity introduces new moral forces into heathen society, especially the 
 noble impulse to missionary service. 
 
 VI. Philanthropic ideas are generated and quickened into activity by the entrance 
 of Christian teaching and example among non-Christian peoples. 
 
 VII. Historic Christianity is declared to be equal to the task above outlined. 
 Its power is shown to be in its supernaturalism and its transcendent appeal to the 
 heart and will of man. Its sufficiency in itself, without any compromise with the 
 ethnic faiths or any surrender of its unique and exclusive character, is insisted upon. 
 Its claim to be a supreme, absolute, universal, and final religion, having its origin in 
 the infinite wisdom and condescending love of God, is accepted unreservedly and in 
 opposition to the theory that it is a product of natural evolution, or the outcome and 
 consummation of the religious searchings of the race, or the outgrowth of other re- 
 ligious systems. Christianity is from Christ, and Christ is from God. In His own 
 incarnate personality He is the highest source of wisdom. In His teaching and 
 example we have the inspiration and pledge of individual righteousness and social 
 morality. 
 
 403 
 
LECTURE IV 
 * 
 
 CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF 
 THE NATIONS 
 
" There is one great difference between Christianity and the best of other reli- 
 gions. They come to men as they are, and tell them that they must make themselves 
 good. But Christianity comes to them and changes them from what they were, 
 brings them a new birth, touches them with a divine life and power in their hearts, 
 and so enables them to begin to be better. The religion of Jesus is a new command- 
 ment, with power to obey it." 
 
 Rev. Henry van Dyke, D.D. 
 
 " Certainly whatever else Christianity may be, it is a religion whose object is to 
 make men moral. And any one who affirms that Christianity did not introduce into 
 the world new moral forces merely convicts himself of ignorance of history. Granted 
 that the Christian Church has made many mistakes and committed many crimes ; 
 granted that she has on particular occasions retarded science and obstructed healthy 
 political movements ; yet it is not to be denied that the Christian religion tends to 
 make men moral, and does so with a persuasive and effective force which belongs to 
 no other influence which has ever been brought to bear upon men. The individual 
 is necessary to society; and the morality of the individual is essential to the well- 
 being of society. In the interests of civilisation, therefore, Christianity is indispen- 
 sable as the only hitherto discovered efficient and universally applicable conservator 
 of the morality of the individual." 
 
 Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D. 
 
 " The great characteristic of Christianity and the proof of its divinity is that it 
 has been the main source of the moral development of Europe, and that it has dis- 
 charged this office, not so much by the inculcation of a system of ethics, however 
 pure, as by the assimilating and attractive influence of a perfect ideal. The moral 
 progress of mankind can never cease to be distinctively and intensely Christian as 
 long as it consists of a gradual approximation to the character of the Christian 
 Founder. There is, indeed, nothing more wonderful in the history of the human 
 race than the way in which that ideal has traversed the lapse of ages, acquiring 
 new strength and beauty with each advance of civilisation, and infusing its beneficent 
 influence into every sphere of thought and action." 
 
 William E. H. Lecky, LL.D. 
 
 " That Christianity should become the religion of the Roman Empire is the 
 miracle of history ; but that it did so become is the leading fact of all history from 
 that day onwards." 
 
 Edward A. Freeman, LL.D. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 * 
 
 CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE 
 NATIONS 
 
 Our survey of non-Christian society has brought to the front many 
 desolating and cruel evils which all must acknowledge need correction. 
 Our scrutiny of remedial agencies apart from the Christian system has 
 not encouraged hope and expectation as to their efficiency. The 
 object of the present lecture is to show the adaptation of the reKgion 
 of Christ, by virtue of its lofty ethical teaching and its subtle spiritual 
 sway over the higher natiure of man, to mitigate or abolish those evils 
 which have so arrested our attention and aroused our sympathies. 
 This is a large and majestic claim for Christianity, and, if it can be 
 sustained, puts it in the front rank of the beneficent and helpful forces 
 of social progress. 
 
 The consensus of spiritual experience justifies the conclusion that 
 the effective remedy must be extra-natural ; that is, it must be from 
 some external source. It will not spring up as a 
 
 spontaneous outgrowth of man's natural gifts, hav- a supernatural remedy 
 
 ing its roots in the powers and capacities of the needed, 
 
 individual soul or in the moral tendencies of 
 human society. It is not inherent in man's mental and spiritual 
 nature, weakened and depraved as it is by sin. He is not, by any 
 ordinary gift of his being, competent to organize and accomplish either 
 individual or social regeneration as a self-originating process. This 
 may seem a bold statement to some who know humanity only in the 
 environment of Christendom, but it should be noted that man as a fac- 
 tor in the Christian civilization of our day is himself the product of 
 Christian forces which for generations have wrought towards his moral 
 elevation, and have produced in him a degree of discernment and a 
 
 405 
 
406 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRMSS 
 
 measure of capacity to respond to higher ideals which otherwise he 
 would never have possessed. This remedy must, moreover, be rehgious 
 in its essence and power, not simply political, patriotic, economic, so- 
 cial, or even ethical, in its tone and scope. It must take possession 
 of the deep springs of the spiritual hfe of man, moving him from within, 
 quickening and renewing the vital energies of the inner life, and sup- 
 plying motives and impulses which find their realm of influence and 
 activity in the higher faculties of the soul. We go a step further and 
 assert, in loyalty to the whole spiritual history of mankind, that the 
 remedy must be from a divine rather than from a human source. 
 
 A weighty confirmation of the truth of these statements may be 
 
 derived from the fact that the natural tendency of society everywhere, 
 
 apart from some supernatural interposition bring- 
 
 Reiigion the saving ing inspiration, guidance, and power, is to go 
 
 force in history. wrong and Stay wrong. There are certain grooves 
 of evil into which human nature untouched by the 
 remedial agencies of divine influence is sure to run, and its course 
 therein is ever towards lower depths. Evolution may be downward as 
 well as upward, and under merely natural auspices it is found to be 
 invariably in the direction of moral degeneracy. There is no effective 
 moral revolution on record except that which has been prompted and 
 guided by supernatural forces as the adjuncts of a God-given religion. 
 This is the strong position of Mr. Kidd in his recent volume on " So- 
 cial Evolution." Religion has ever been the saving force in human 
 history. How otherwise can we explain the moral helplessness and 
 social decay of humanity, as a universal rule, up to the present hour, 
 wherever the spiritual inspiration and the ethical force of religion have 
 been absent? Left to itself, society seems to be self -destructive and 
 to have no remedy within its own resources.^ This sociological point 
 
 I " Taking society as it is, with power to originate its destruction, and ever 
 multiplying its infirmities without alleviation or remedy, it is more than a mystery. 
 It evokes the most considerate inquiry as to its nature, its constitutional diathesis, 
 its inherited bias, its proclivities to evil and good ; and especially does it suggest an 
 inquiry into its origin, whether it is resting on a right basis, and whether it pos- 
 sesses the power of recuperation or the power of adequate recovery to an ideal. 
 History speaks with no uncertain voice of the infirmities of the social structure, of 
 collapses of governments, religions, and nations from inherent corruption, and of 
 the inability of society to correct its evils. As a natural organism or the product of 
 the instincts of human beings, it has been on trial long enough. For relief from its 
 infirmities it has resorted to naturalistic remedies, but always without avail. In 
 other words, it has sought to restore itself by the very means that destroyed it. 
 
 " The world has tried pagan sociology long enough. Neither by Plato and 
 Socrates, nor by Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, has the race advanced beyond the 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 407 
 
 of view does not involve any change in the scientific aspects or the 
 natural construction of society, but it brings into the foreground the 
 necessity of a change in its temper, its moral tone, and its impelling 
 spirit. It suggests the natural status plus moral power ; it impUes the 
 scientific product //«f spiritual energy. What human society needs in 
 order to make possible any substantial progress towards perfect condi- 
 tions is a moral resurrection, and this science alone will not suggest 
 and cannot provide ; it can hardly discover that it is necessary. 
 
 Loyalty to the facts of history, however, requires us to be still 
 more explicit, and points to the simple truth of experience that without 
 the light and gmdance of Christianity, or the re- 
 ligious life which was distinctively preparatory to "^^^ determining moral 
 
 . , ,1-11 ,.,,.. - factor in a Christian 
 
 It, human nature has developed m the direction of philosophy of progress, 
 moral disability and decadence, with no power in 
 itself to escape from this downward trend. The present condition of 
 the non-Christian world, after centuries of experience, only gives an 
 added emphasis to this statement ; rather it places it upon the plane of 
 demonstrated and incontrovertible truths, based upon data as old as 
 humanity and yet as fresh to-day as ever. The irresistible presump- 
 tion is thus created that humanity is, and will continue to be, sunk in 
 a moral slough, save as the religion of Christ offers it a solid basis upon 
 which to stand. Apart from Christianity and its vital influence, there 
 is no hope. The principles which have helped mankind, the institu- 
 tions around which society has rallied, the motives which have per- 
 manendy inspired the beneficence of the race, and the watchwords which 
 have put heart into altruistic undertakings, have all come from Chris- 
 tian sources, reckoning these sources as inclusive of the divine religion 
 as it has existed in the world both before and after the Incarnation. 
 
 The fuU consideration we have given to the claims of certain rival 
 gospels of social regeneration has not been time misspent if it has con- 
 boundary lines of its infirmities or overcome the friction of its activities. Under 
 the influence of pagan philosophy social degeneracy ensued, and the mighty civil 
 structures of Greece and Rome perished. Equally futile in modern times have been 
 the naturalistic theories of reformers, socialists, and economic teachers, all of whom, 
 in their short-sightedness, have failed to apprehend the situation, and provided in- 
 adequately for its improvement. Wise and learned they may have been, but society 
 has reveled in corruption while they proclaimed their theories. . . . The explana- 
 tion of the failure of the political economist is not in his want of wisdom, but in his 
 naturalistic conception of society and in his theory of the adequacy of naturalistic 
 forces and processes for its preservation and restoration. He needs to learn a new 
 lesson without forgetting the old."— Article on " Sociological Christianity a Neces- 
 sity," in The Methodist Review, May, 1891, pp. 451, 452. 
 
408 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 vinced us that they are not gifted with the necessary moral force and 
 spiritual vitality to carry society to higher levels and make its individual 
 
 members each a new creature, in touch with the 
 
 Christianity's endow- eternal Source of power, and moulded by saving 
 
 ment of power. ideals. We will endeavor now to complete our 
 
 survey of the situation by a careful study of 
 the special adaptation of Christianity to eilect a permanent and sav- 
 ing transformation of society when once it has been introduced. 
 Nothing, surely, has ever wrought in human history which was better 
 able to accomplish radical and fundamental changes in the tenden- 
 cies of society, and create an environment so directly conducive to 
 the lasting well-being of humanity. Its great distinguishing charac- 
 teristic, aside from the transcendent wisdom of its teachings, is its 
 power of moral renovation and its motive energy. The trouble with 
 other instrumentalities is that after they have done their best and pro- 
 duced their ultimate result in human character, they leave man still 
 morally incapable and give him no permanent impulse in the right 
 direction. However much they may inform the mind, polish the 
 manners, and restrain the external acts, however great may be the 
 patriotic enthusiasm and the religious fervor which are produced, yet 
 the basis of incorruptible moral principle is lacking, the illuminating 
 guidance of truth is missed, and the inspiring touch of spiritual life is 
 absent. 
 
 The relation of Christianity to the world's progress is an aspect of 
 the philosophy of history which has been thrown far too much in the 
 background in the thinking of our present generation. Christian phil- 
 osophers — at least some of them — have not asserted it as boldly and as 
 unreservedly as they were justified in doing, while the evolutionary 
 philosophy- which has so overshadowed and permeated the intellectual 
 drift of our times has magnified to an unwarranted degree the scope of 
 naturalistic forces in social evolution.^ The function of Christianity, 
 
 1 " Evidently the Master, at whose feet reformers must sit, did not organize as 
 to its form n new society, for it remained in His hands entirely unchanged. He 
 did not interfere with its ineradicable tendencies to home, government, industry, and 
 religion. Had He intended to promote a revolution in social science He did not 
 manifest the purpose by overturning, checking, or to any degree interfering with, 
 the fourfold naturalistic products. . . . While, however. He recognized society in 
 its naturalness as a product, and in its wholeness as a human necessity, He saw the 
 impossibility of reconstruction, rcpaii« and progress through human and naturalistic 
 agencies, and provided for its necessities as no philosopher or reformer had con- 
 ceived or understood. He must be credited with holding such a view of the race as 
 would allow the introduction of a new spirit, new principles, and new purposes, and 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 400 
 
 (including the C.c? Testaroert as nart of its history) as an influence in 
 the transformation of human life, its range and power as a factor in 
 the whole complex movement of the world towards its goal, is one of 
 the most fascinating and noble phases of social science, and will be 
 recognized as such more and more as the sublime mission of Chris- 
 tianity in society becomes further apparent. 
 
 The scope and importance of the subject demand that we scruti- 
 nize more in detail the essential features of that social ministry which 
 reveal the unique adaptation of the Christian religion to promote the 
 welfare of mankind. 
 
 Christianity alone provides an adequate method of deliverance from 
 sin and its penalty. This may seem to bear more directly upon indi- 
 vidual than upon social experience. This is true ; 
 but sin is a social curse as well as an individual Christianity alone has 
 
 _ 1^.^11 . solved the difi^culties 
 
 offense, and only sin-freed souls can constitute a of sin. 
 
 perfected society. A society of saved individuals 
 is potentially a saved society. In fact, even a modicum of illuminated, 
 regenerated, forgiven, God-inspired, and God-possessed individual 
 souls forms a moral leaven which will eventually penetrate and save 
 the whole ; and, moreover, there is no possibility of social renewal and 
 transformation except through the personal work of divine grace in the 
 individual heart. Let us cling unhesitatingly and unreservedly to this 
 vital dictum of our Gospel, " Ye must be born again." The new birth 
 is the central fact in the spiritual environment of the Christian. It 
 involves that illumination of spirit and that act of faith which are in 
 themselves the signs of a majestic change in the whole attitude and 
 outlook of the soul, and which secure to it all the benefits of the Re- 
 deemer's atoning work. Christ Himself thus becomes the sin-bearer. 
 He removes the crushing burden of conscious guilt. If that be not 
 lifted, the true rehgious hfe of humanity is paralyzed and society is 
 morally helpless. Every ethnic religion has stumbled just here. Its 
 
 of forces non-naturalistic and non-human. As man cannot regenerate himself, so 
 society cannot regenerate itself. The one as well as the other must be born from 
 above. . . . Yet the change proposed by the Master was not a change in constitu- 
 tional form, but of essence, of spirit, of principles, of laws, of methods of life, and 
 of relation to divine ideas and agencies. Going deeper into the problem than all 
 others, He distinguished between naturalistic forms and idealistic principles, pre- 
 ferring to state the latter, while the forms might be left to care for themselves."— 
 The Methodist Review, May, 1891, p. 454. 
 
410 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 doctrine of sin and the measures it proposes for deliverance have been 
 the sign of its failure. On the other hand, this is the distinctive excel- 
 lence of Christianity. There is a common basis of ethics in the reason 
 and conscience of humanity, but Christianity reveals the only way of 
 deliverance from sin. We may have the most elaborate system of 
 ethics,— Confucianism glorified. Buddhism transfigured with a flawless 
 code of conduct,— but, like the perfect law of Judaism, all this will only 
 reveal more clearly the incapacity of man to exemplify ethical perfection. 
 We need not insist upon the fact that sin reigns in non-Christian 
 hearts. There is a feeling in some quarters that pagan society is com- 
 paratively innocent in God's sight, because its 
 Conscious guilt among members cannot be held responsible to the same 
 non-Christian races, extent' as Others who enjoy the full light and 
 knowledge of the Gospel. Let heathen society be 
 judged by its own standard of knowledge and conscious responsibility, 
 and there can be no shadow of doubt that sin, both in the sense of 
 personal sinfulness and of overt transgression, is one of the most vivid 
 and pervading facts of consciousness among all non- Christian races. 
 To be sure, the natural result of the prevalent legalism is to develop 
 spiritual pride and a complacent consciousness of merit, but this only 
 indicates that the heathen have a mistaken confidence in the effective- 
 ness of their own self-imposed methods of gaining the favor of their 
 gods and of securing deliverance from the wrath and judgment which 
 they are conscious their sins deserve. The various methods of propi- 
 tiation, and the apprehension of judgment and punishment in the 
 prevalent religious experience of non-Christian peoples, indicate plainly 
 enough the consciousness of guilt. The inner experience of Christian 
 converts testifies to their previous consciousness of sin and condemna- 
 tion, and reveals their grateful appreciation of the assurance of for- 
 giveness and reconciliation. In all the ethnic faiths there is a sufficient 
 recognition of the misery and condemnation which sin involves, but 
 the burden of sin finds expression rather in the fear of vengeance and 
 in the dread of calamity, woe, and suffering, than in a sense of guilt, 
 impurity, and transgression of a holy law. The result is that the de- 
 liverance expected and implored, either as the reward of merit or the 
 fruit of sacrifice, by the disciples of non-Christian cults is from the 
 calamities, miseries, misfortunes, and fierce judgments of deity, both in 
 this life and the life to come, while Christianity alone teaches the 
 sweet secret of repentance and puts into the heart the humble plea for 
 forgiveness and reconciliation through the merits of Christ. It brings 
 thus an immediate peace to the conscience-stricken heart, insures a 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 411 
 
 present forgiveness, and opens a new path of hope, bright and fragrant 
 with the presence of a reconciled Lord. Here is the old, the vital, the 
 precious, the matchless preeminence of the Gospel as a deliverance 
 from sin illustrated in contrast with all the abortive methods of 
 heathenism. It brings, through faith in an atoning Mediator, a full, 
 free, and immediate assurance of salvation from sin and its condemna- 
 tion, while all other systems involve the hopeless task of earning this 
 coveted benefit by long, wearisome, uncertain, and virtually worthless 
 methods of sacrifice and legal obedience. 
 
 The practices in vogue, for example, in connection with popular 
 Hinduism to obtain merit and to secure the pardon of iniquity are in 
 many instances so puerile and degrading as to be 
 repugnant to the common sense of humanity. The Hindu methods of 
 giving of alms to lazy mendicants, notorious for expiation, 
 
 vices, the participation in pilgrimages which are 
 too often characterized by license without ordinary restraints, the tor- 
 tiu-e of the body, the pronouncing in endless iteration of the names of 
 the gods, the elaborate sacrificial ritual, the paying of due reverence to 
 the Brahman, the swallowing of penitential pills of disgusting charac- 
 ter, are among some of the expedients adopted by Hindu devotees. 
 The spiritual counsel embodied in many of the " Sacred Books of the 
 East " is such as no Christian reader can peruse without sadness and 
 loathing. It is said in the " Padma Purana," " He who carries in his 
 body a drop of water in which a Brahman's toe has been washed gets 
 all his sins immediately destroyed." And, again, in the " Mahabha- 
 rata " is found the following strange announcement : " He who con- 
 templates the Ganges while walking, sitting, sleeping, thinking of other 
 things, awake, eating, breathing, and conversing, is delivered from all 
 sins." Such trifling as this with the mighty power of sin is all in vain. 
 Such shallow expedients for lifting the burden of guilt and providing 
 any satisfactory basis of reconciliation with the deity are futile and 
 hopeless. On the other hand, the Gospel of perfect and final recon- 
 ciliation, if accepted with full recognition of its import, stills at once 
 and forever the reproaches of a guilty conscience, and imparts to the 
 soul the peace and courage of assured forgiveness. With this marvel- 
 ous experience comes a new self-consciousness, which humbles at the 
 same time that it uplifts the soul. A higher value is thus given to 
 life, a fresh hope to existence ; a strange passion for good is aroused 
 where formerly a love for evil prevailed. The man is, in fact, a new 
 creature, and has within his transformed individual character the 
 promise and potency of a nobler social ideal. 
 
412 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The old Gospel is as potent and as true to its transforming record 
 in mission fields to-day as it was in the apostolic age. The classic 
 story of Paul's conversion on the way to Damas- 
 The Gospel has lost cus can be paralleled in the history of mission con- 
 none of its potency, versions on many fields. A Chinese native 
 preacher was proclaiming the Gospel of immediate, 
 perfect, and eternal salvation to a group of countrymen. A notorious 
 character, the chief of the gamblers of that district and the terror of 
 the neighborhood, was passing by. He was a bold, desperate, and 
 hardened leader in all iniquity. He paused and listened, and that 
 wondrous message reached his heart. " If Jesus can do this for me," 
 he said, "then He shall." He then and there accepted Him, and 
 went to his home to close his haunt of crime, and broke at once and 
 forever with his past life and former associations. This incident, 
 told at the Shanghai Conference of 1877, is but a typical illustration 
 of the unimpaired power of the Gospel, if sincerely and unreservedly 
 accepted, to secure an instant and complete change in the relation of 
 the soul to God and His holy law.i 
 
 The experience of pardon and reconciliation is not all that the 
 
 Gospel brings in its remedial mission to sinful man. It gives him also 
 
 an endowment of power to resist sin and live in 
 
 It brings not only rightcousncss. Nowhere else can the soul obtain 
 
 pardon, but imparts ,,.,. , ,, , . .... 
 
 power. the high impulse and the moral stamina which it 
 
 needs to engage successfully in its conflict with 
 temptation and surrounding evil. " There is no good Indian but a 
 dead one " is the complacent verdict of those who have aroused the 
 hostility and treachery which lurk in his natural heart. " There is no 
 good Indian but a regenerate one " is the more kindly testimony of the 
 missionary. Lieutenant W. H. Wassell, in Harper's Magazine for 
 November, 1894, gives abundant testimony to confirm the truth of 
 this happier verdict concerning the once barbarous and bloody Sioux. 
 A few facts here, and only a few, can be quoted, gathered at random 
 from fresh missionary testimony in widely separated fields, as revealing 
 the power of Christianity at the present hour to transform the moral 
 character not only of individuals, but of whole communities. 
 
 In November, 1894, on the east coast of Formosa, a sailing vessel 
 was slowly drifting landward in a dangerous sea. On the shore, face 
 to face with the doomed vessel, were a mission chapel and a village of 
 Christian converts, the fruit of the missionary toils of Dr. G. L. MacKay, 
 of the Canadian Presbyterian Church. The native pastor, Mr. A-Hoa, 
 
 I " Records of Shanghai Conference, 1877," p. 103. 
 
Day School, Bahia, Brazil. Mackenzie College, Sao Paulo, Brazil. 
 
 Educational Efforts in South America. 
 
 (P. B. F. M. N.) 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 413 
 
 Dr. MacKay's first convert on the island, hastily beat the drum as if 
 to call the villagers to worship, but his object was to gather them all 
 for the work of rescue. Some of them were sent 
 to the ship through the heavy sea to let the crew s°""= representative 
 know that there were no savages and that if they *"««« report™" 
 wished to come ashore there was a Christian chapel 
 which would be placed at their disposal. The captain, his wife and 
 child, and the entire ship's crew were safely housed in that place of 
 refuge, and before the close of the day twenty-one Europeans and 
 Americans met one hundred and forty-six native converts for a service 
 of thanksgiving and worship in that house of prayer. " Note well," 
 says Dr. MacKay in reporting this incident, " that twenty-five years 
 ago that crew would have been murdered, the vessel plundered, and 
 no one left to tell the tale." i 
 
 At the recent Annual Meeting of the Rhenish Missionary Society, 
 Herr Pilgram drew a striking contrast between the state of society 
 thirteen years ago and at the present time in the Toba District of 
 Sumatra. " Then everything was unsafe ; no one dared to go half an 
 hour's distance from his village. War, robbery, piracy, and slavery 
 reigned supreme. Now there is Christian life everywhere, and churches 
 full of attentive hearers. . . . The faith of our young Christians is 
 seen in their deeds. They have renounced idolatrous customs; they 
 visit the sick and pray with them ; they go to their enemies and make 
 reconciliation with them. This has often made a powerful impression 
 on the heathen, because they saw that the Christians could do what 
 was impossible to heathen — they could forgive injuries." ^ 
 
 Two Bavarian missionaries were chatting one day with a group of 
 converts in Central Australia, when the conversation turned upon the 
 moral character of their lives before their conversion, and it was asked 
 if any of them had ever committed a murder. Out of nine converts 
 who were present only one had never killed a man. But Christianity 
 had wrought a mighty change in each case and given the strength of 
 a renewed nature.' 
 
 In the northeastern extremity of Australia, upon Cape York penin- 
 sula, is Mapoon, where the Moravians, in connection with the United 
 Presbyterians of AustraKa, have established a mission among the 
 Papuans, who were known as degraded cannibals sunk in immorality, 
 and especially bloodthirsty and treacherous. The result of their labors 
 
 1 The Missions of the World, March, 1895, p. in. 
 
 2 Quoted in The Chronicle, February, 1895, p. 48. 
 5 The Chronicle, June, 1895, p. 174. 
 
414 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 . has been wonderful. " Four years ago no unarmed vessel dared to 
 put into Port Musgrave, owing to the reputation of the Batavia River 
 blacks for savagery and cannibalism. Now they come there to make 
 repairs. About two years ago a party of shipwrecked sailors were 
 rescued from cannibal blacks, fed and cared for, and led through miles 
 of jungle to Mapoon by the mission Papuans, without the knowledge 
 of the missionaries until they arrived there." ^ 
 
 Among the Kols in India has just been celebrated the jubilee an- 
 niversary of the establishment of the Gossner Mission, a report of which 
 was given in Der Missionsfreund, the organ of the Berlin Missionary 
 Society. The number of professing Christians connected with the 
 mission is about forty thousand, and their jubilee commemoration was 
 a season of Christian enthusiasm and rejoicing over the power of the 
 Gospel. The mission was begun in 1845, when the people were given 
 to devil-worship and led a deeply degraded life. "Surely such a 
 Jubilee," writes the chronicler, " is a grand testimony to missionary 
 work, to the presence and power of the Spirit, as in the apostolic days, 
 in reclaiming the most abject, and raising them speedily to a high 
 plane of earnest Christian faith and life, and consequently of civiliza- 
 tion." 2 
 
 The late Rev. Dr. Tyler, a veteran missionary among the Zulus, 
 stated that " after forty years of service the contrast between the time 
 when I entered and left the field was very wonderful. Witchcraft had 
 ceased, the cruelties practised by spirit-doctors were ended, supersti- 
 tions had lost their stronghold, and a knowledge of Gospel truth was 
 widely diffused. . . . The reports of an annual meeting of Zulu Chris- 
 tians a few years ago showed the contributions for that year to have 
 amounted to $2573 for 1509 members, or the sum of $1.70 for each 
 church-member." ^ 
 
 " Look at our Christians," writes, in a private letter, a missionary 
 in Assam. "What attractive Christian homes you can find in Sibsa- 
 gor! what patriarchal simplicity and purity among our Christian Kols! 
 See heathenism with its incredible vice, and then see our hundreds of 
 Christian homes in upper Assam, with their simple, beautiful family 
 life, and you will then know what Christianity has done for these peo- 
 ple. Come and see our church in Sibsagor, full of clean, well-dressed 
 attendants, all of whom are Christians. You will find among our six- 
 teen hundred Christians no paupers, no beggars, no criminals. Go to 
 
 1 The Missionary Review of the World, July, 1896, p. 494. 
 
 2 The Mission Wortd, November, 1896, p. 504. 
 
 » Life and Light for Woman, August, 1895, p. 356. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 415 
 
 the jail here, which is full, but you will find no Christian in it. Come 
 and see, and you will be convinced that Christianity is the power to 
 lift these heathen people out of their degradation." i 
 
 From the scenes of recent cruel massacre at Erzingan, in Eastern 
 Turkey, is reported the death of a convert from Mohammedanism, who 
 was once a member of that fierce community of whose cruel outrages 
 upon Christians we have lately heard so much. The Rev. W. N. 
 Chambers, of the American Board, in writing of him says : " His life 
 had been stormy, but his death was peaceful and triumphant. His 
 wife, still a strong Moslem, used to say, ' I am thankful to the Protes- 
 tants. My husband used to blaspheme and beat me. Now he treats 
 me with gentleness and consideration.' " 2 
 
 In the far north of our own Continent the venerable Archdeacon 
 Phair writes from the Diocese of Rupert's Land of the change which 
 the Gospel has produced in the lives of Indian converts. Gambling, 
 conjuring, dancing, and all sorts of heathenism have given way before 
 the mighty power of the Gospel. " The men who, with painted face 
 and plaited hair, spent their days and nights in yelling and beating the 
 drum are now found ' clothed, and in their right mind, sitting at the 
 feet of Jesus.' Outside the Gospel there is not enough power in the 
 world to accomplish a change like this." ' 
 
 Amid the darkest heathenism of the Pacific Islands may be gathered 
 some of the most striking testimonies of changed lives through the 
 influence of the Gospel. In a recent article by the Rev. Robert Mac- 
 kenzie, on "A Century's Conquest in the Pacific," is a record of 
 humanity redeemed from the vilest depths of heathen abomination and 
 cruelty to reformed character, righteous living, and humane customs, 
 which cannot be surpassed in the earth's history. Group after group 
 of savage islands has been transformed and cleansed, and new men 
 and women have sprung up out of a horrid environment of licentious- 
 ness and bestiality. If there were no other chapter of Gospel triumph 
 in the history of missions, this alone would be sufficient to demonstrate 
 the power of Christianity to regenerate society.* 
 
 When the Jubilee of the Wesleyan Methodist Mission in Fiji was 
 celebrated in 1885, the Rev. James Calvert wrote concerning it that 
 fifty years previous there was not a Christian in all Fiji, but then there 
 was not an avowed heathen left. CannibaUsm had for some years been 
 
 1 The Rev. C. E. Patrick (A. B. M. U.), Sibsagor, Assam. 
 
 2 The Missionary Herald, July, 1893, p. 283. 
 
 ' The Church Missionary Gleaner, May, 1894, p. 67, 
 * The Missionary Record, December, 1 894, p. 336, 
 
116 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 wholly extinct, and other customs of cruelty and barbarism had dis- 
 appeared. Concerning these changes Baron de Hubner, a German 
 scientist and statesman, who had travelled extensively, remarked to the 
 Rev. A. J. Webb, " I must say that the change which has come over 
 these islands is wonderful— no candid man can deny it." ' 
 
 Concerning the transformations effected by the Gospel in New 
 Guinea, the Rev. S. Macfarlane, LL.D., has given most emphatic and 
 striking testimony. " I feel sure," he writes, " if the churches could be 
 made to realize the present salvation which Christianity brings to these 
 people, saving them from the hell of heathenism, with its cruelty and 
 cannibalism, and lifting them into a very heaven of peace, happiness, 
 and progress, they would cease to speculate so much about the future, 
 feeling that there is enough in their present salvation to fire our enthu- 
 siasm." 2 
 
 It is perhaps almost unnecessary to take the time to bring forward 
 facts like these, which could be multiplied from many mission fields, 
 but, strange to say, there are many who deny the efficacy of missions 
 to produce the ordinary fruits of Christianity in the hardened and 
 sterile soil of heathen lives. Charles Darwin described a Christmas 
 that he once spent among the Maori converts to Christianity, and said, 
 " I never saw a nicer or more merry group, and to think that this was 
 the centre of the land of cannibalism, murder, and all atrocious crimes! 
 The lesson of the missionary is the enchanter's wan'd." Sir Charles 
 Elliott, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, remarked in a recent 
 address on missions in India, "The Government [referring to British 
 rule in India] cannot bestow on the people that which gives to life its 
 colour, or to love of duty its noblest incentive. It cannot offer the 
 highest morality fortified by the example of the Divinely Perfect Life." * 
 
 II 
 
 Christianity, however, does much more than provide a redemption 
 from sin. It brings the soul under the sway of loftier incentives. It 
 
 1 Work and Workers in the Mission Field, May, 1892, p. 12. Cf. also, for in- 
 formation upon mission work in the South Sea Islands, The Missions of the World, 
 June, 1894, p. 156; 77(1? Chronicle, December, 1892, p. 283; July, 1893, p. 194. 
 
 2 The Missionary Review of the World, July, 1895, p. 511. Cf. also an article 
 entitled " Pioneering in New Guinea," by the Rev. R. Mackenzie, in The Mission- 
 ary Record, August, 1895, p. 230. 
 
 ' The Church Missionary Intelligencer, April, 1894, p. 250. For an extended 
 quotation from the address, see supra, p. 374. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 417 
 
 places the new man under the power of convictions which give a fresh 
 meaning and zest to life. He finds himself intently scanning a pro- 
 gramme of service which has become strangely 
 attractive and imperative. The spirit with which The supremacy of the 
 he regards his fellow-men is changed, and he begins christian motive, 
 to play a new r61e in social life. The Christ in His 
 personality, His example, and His ideals comes into the foreground. 
 We all know the immense power and commanding influence of motive. 
 Mere knowledge of what is right and obligatory may be entirely in- 
 operative without the impelling incentive. Christianity supplies the 
 living motive in a new and powerful form. Ethnic religions in their 
 philosophic content are possessed of moral maxims and theoretical 
 ideals which, if strictly observed in practice, would make them a 
 beneficent ministry to the world. But, aside from their fatal imperfec- 
 tions in methods of dealing with sin, they are weak almost to the ex- 
 tent of moral paralysis in the realm of ennobling impulse. Not that 
 they are without strong appeals to man's cravings and hopes, but this 
 appeal is to the lower rather than to the higher susceptibiKties of his 
 nature. If we compare the secret springs of action and the incentives 
 to duty which we find in Confucianism, in Hinduism, in Buddhism, 
 and in Islam, with the lofty, soul-quickening, and soul-transfiguring 
 motive power of the Gospel, we will note the great difference in the 
 quality rather than in the quantity of the motive. Christ Himself is 
 Lord and Master in the realm of Christian incentive. There is nothing 
 more wonderful in God's universe than the personality of Christ ; there 
 is nothing more marvelous than its influence over the human heart. In 
 the great battle with individual temptations, as well as in the strenuous 
 struggle with old associations, ir. the break with traditional customs, in 
 the uprooting of deeply seated tendencies, in the pangs of isolation, 
 perhaps in the stress of persecution, and in the paths of sacrifice, obe- 
 dience, and service, only the motives which contact with Christ inspires 
 can sufficiently cheer, invigorate, and fortify the soul. 
 
 Some one has said that the great need of Africa is a conscience. 
 The great need of the world is a sufficiently powerful and truly unself- 
 ish motive, backed by conviction of duty and 
 inspired by personal devotion to Christ. This, and a master motive -:n 
 
 ^ J ^ J f 1 J • morals tne great need 
 
 this only, is able to overcome the trend of heredity ^j the w?orid. 
 
 and lead the soul to break with its past, rise above 
 its environment, and become Christhke in its attitude lo its fellow-men. 
 The great social evils of the world are impregnable, except as this 
 motive of Christlike devotion inspires the heart. The social espionage 
 
418 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL FJiOUJiJi^^> 
 
 and despotism of the Orient are even more terrible than its State tyr- 
 anny. Who has raised a finger against the giant wrong of caste, 
 except as he drew the courage and the wisdom to do so, either directly 
 or indirectly, from the rehgion of Christ? The- words of Dr. Duff 
 were true when he said : " What, then, can exorcise this demon spirit 
 of caste? Nothing— nothing but the mighty power of the Spirit of 
 God, quickening, renewing, and sanctifying the whole Hindu soul. It 
 is grace and not argument, regeneration of nature and not any improved 
 policy of government, that will effect the change — in a word, it is the 
 Gospel, the everlasting Gospel, and that alone, savingly brought home 
 by the energy of Jehovah's Spirit, that can effectually root out and 
 destroy this gigantic evil." 
 
 This supreme motive of love, this mystery of devotion, which the 
 Gospel of Christ awakens and vivifies, is the open secret of missionary 
 effort, not in Christian lands alone, but wherever Christian churches 
 have been planted among non-Christian peoples.^ Nor is it only this ; 
 it is also the incentive to social reform in these foreign communities. 
 The inspiration to deliver society from its traditional evils is but another 
 phase of the workings of the missionary spirit of the Gospel. This we 
 are beginning more fully to realize, and to give it its due not only for 
 its beneficent operations, but for its comprehensive scope— seeking not 
 only for the highest spiritual progress of humanity, but also for its 
 truest moral and best material well-being. 
 
 1 " We have no room in this short chapter to describe the villages, houses, 
 canoes, pottery, weapons, and native life of the New Guineans, nor to trace the his- 
 tory of the different stations formed along its coast. For these details the reader 
 can turn to the books written by Mr. Chalmers and Dr. Macfarlane. There is, 
 however, one thing we must find space for, and that is to raise a memorial in honour 
 of the noble army of South Sea island missionaries and martyrs, who have given 
 their lives for the salvation of its people. During the past twenty-three years nearly 
 three hundred Christian teachers and their wives from the Society, the Hervey, the 
 Samoan, and the Loyalty Islands, or from noble little Niu^, have willingly, even 
 eagerly, gone forth to labour there. Some have been spared to work on for many 
 years — conspicuous among them Ruatoka, the greatly respected teacher of Port 
 Moresby, who has been at that station since its commencement ; but others have 
 been obliged to leave, broken in health, aged before their time ; and, sadder still, no 
 less than a hundred and twenty of them have died of fever, or have been poisoned, 
 or brutally killed. Well may a missionary express his conviction that, though per- 
 haps lacking the polish and culture of Europeans, these faithful native teachers will 
 bear comparison with Christians anywhere for strong, sincere, and whole-hearted 
 devotion to Christ."— Cousins, " The Story of the South Seas," p. 192. 
 
Girls' School, Saitillo, Mexico. 
 Graduating Class, Mexico City School, December, 1895. 
 
 A New Era of Education for. Mexican Girls. 
 (P. B. F. M.N.I 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 419 
 
 III 
 
 Christianity gives a new aspect to society. It not only changes 
 the man and his motive, but also his outlook towards his fellow-men. 
 What is the Christian as distinguished from the 
 non-Christian conception of man? Does it not The christian i>er»u« 
 consist in this : that Christianity places a far higher ' "^^te oVma'n" '^*'" 
 and more ennobling estimate upon the individual 
 as created in the hkeness of God, and the object of divine love and 
 compassion, for whom a marvelous sacrifice has been made, and for 
 whose sake God, in the person of His Son, has taken the form of a 
 servant? There is no religion which regards with such respect the 
 individuality of man and seeks so sympathetically to guide, foster, and 
 develop it, and eventually assigns to it a destiny so glorious. Other 
 religions are sure to supplant or suppress it and, it may be, claim an 
 undue sovereignty over it. The non-Christian conception in all ages 
 of history has been marked by an underestimate of the individual and 
 an undue exaltation of civil, political, and religious authority as repre- 
 sented by the hierarchies of the State and the Church. It was so in 
 ancient paganism, and such is the case now in all barbarous and even 
 semi-barbarous environments. The dignity of the individual as God- 
 bom, and endowed with freedom, with civil and religious privileges, 
 with personal rights which no human authority can legitimately ignore 
 or violate, is the exclusive legacy of Christianity to humanity. These 
 things have never been recognized except where Christian conceptionf 
 ■of man have prevailed. " The great notion in all the ancient empires," 
 writes Dr. Fairbairn, " was that the king or the priest owns the people. 
 The idea of man as a conscious, rational, moral individual, of worth 
 for his own sake, of equal dignity before his Maker, did not exist in 
 antiquity till it came into being through Israel." i 
 
 That this monstrous misconception of the social, civil, and reli- 
 gious status of humanity still prevails throughout the non-Christian 
 world may be demonstrated by the study of the 
 conditions of human Ufe in almost any one of the The pagan coneeption 
 
 ' stiU lingers in Oriental 
 
 great empires of Asia or among the tribal govern- tradition, 
 
 ments of Africa. No more ghastly illustration of 
 the spirit and tendencies of Moslem rule can be found, even in all its 
 dark and desolating record, than that which Christian nations have 
 recently beheld, with shuddering sorrow and indignation, but with 
 » " Religion in History and in Modem Life," p. IZ3. 
 
420 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Strange apathy, in the contemporary history of Turkey. The Turkish 
 Government, with imperious complacency and arrogant assumption of 
 power, claims to own those subject Christian races. Their life, their 
 property, their sacred honor, their earthly all, are regarded as wholly 
 at its disposal. Persia, if its slumbering fanaticism were aroused, would 
 be ready for the same overweening r61e of defiance to every right of 
 humanity. India, previous to the restraints of British rule, held in 
 slight esteem some of the most precious prerogatives of human hfe, and 
 even to-day, were that rule withdrawn, there is no guarantee, save the 
 power which Christianity may have attained, that man, woman, or child 
 would be safe from the old barbarism of the past. Not only the social 
 and civil, but even the religious, status of man in India is after the 
 pagan rather than the Christian ideal. The Roman arena may not be 
 there, but that great Colosseum of Caste seems to make all India one 
 vast pit where, with hardly any figure of speech, humanity is thrown to 
 the lions. There is no pity, no compassion, for low-caste humanity. 
 The only sanctity that is recognized pertains to the higher ranks of 
 caste exclusiveness. The Pariah is the offscouring, while the fact that 
 he is a man rather than a beast is a matter of insignificant importance. 
 He is simply the victim of a great system with no basis of morality, 
 with no respect for his humanity, which appears to have been devised 
 for the express purpose of establishing over him an inexorable tyranny. 
 Turn now to China, and we find the same faitoe to appreciate the 
 sacredness of man as man, the same crushing and grinding power of 
 what in that country represents the State. We have not to go back far 
 in the history of Japan before we meet with an overshadowing system 
 of feudaUsm, while even at the present hour the theory that the Mika- 
 do, if not divine in his person, is divine in his right and authority, is 
 still a part of the political code. In the realms of savage as distin- 
 guished from semi-civiUzed rule man is everywhere but a puppet and 
 a slave, with even his right to live taken from him or at any moment 
 liable to be ignored. 
 
 It is characteristic, therefore, of the non-Christian estimate of man 
 that it fails to recognize the sacredness of his personality, ignores his 
 rights and privileges as an individual, ' and counts him a victim and 
 tool of Church or State, as occasion or mere caprice may require. 
 Man as representative of humanity has no charter of rights, while the 
 poor, the weak, the ignorant, the enslaved, the helpless, the widow, 
 and the orphan are those who, as a rule, have to bear the burdens and 
 sufferings which are incidental to the system. Nothing is more strik- 
 ing than that deep and happy consciousness which so often comes to 
 
CHRISTIAmTY THE SOCIAL BOPE OF THE NATIONS 421 
 
 Christian converts when they first realize the magnitude of the change 
 in their personal status which has been wrought by their acceptance of 
 Christianity. It is hard for them at first to realize that their old posi- 
 tion of inferiority and insignificance as the puppets and slaves of power 
 has at least in theory, if not altogether in fact, entirely passed away, 
 and that they have entered into a new and direct relationship to Christ, 
 the King of kings and Lord of lords, and have joined the common 
 brotherhood of the redeemed. Christian missions are the champion of 
 this new conception of man as man, which is destined in the end to 
 revolutionize the political and social ideals of non-Christian peoples. 
 The success of missions will be revealed and emphasized more and 
 more, as time goes on, by the intensity of the irrepressible conflict be- 
 tween the old and the new view of man as a citizen of the State and 
 a member of society. On the strength of this, some critic of missions 
 may be inclined to denounce them as an unwarranted intrusion into a 
 peaceful realm of traditional wrong and well-established despotism; 
 but is not this resistless tendency to bring in new and beneficent 
 changes the historic glory of Christianity which commends rather than 
 condemns it ? 
 
 Another conspicuous aspect of the non-Christian estimate of man 
 is its imdervaluation of the sacredness of life. It is Christianity which 
 establishes the idea that the State, as represented 
 by its rulers, is bound to respect human life and Heathen statecraft stni 
 will be held accountable to God for any violation cUngs to its absolutism, 
 of its sanctity. The pagan theory was not only i 
 
 that the State possessed absolute mastery over its subjects, but owned 
 its gods as well, and was the appointed guardian of their rights, and 
 entitled to enforce the observance of every religious duty, even at the 
 instant sacrifice of the sacred right to live. That the State is ac- 
 coimtable to God, because man is the child of God and under His 
 protection, is a new and revolutionary teaching of Christianity. The 
 State, without any offense to the non-Christian theory of its relations 
 to human life, can destroy it at will for any one of many reasons : it 
 may be to dignify worship, to gratify vanity, to allay superstition, to 
 ward off evil, to satisfy vengeance, to sate the appetite for blood, or 
 even to free from the burden of support. The old heathen empires 
 would never tolerate a question as to their authority on this point. 
 God only has ever called them to account, and it is the Providence of 
 God in our day which has marked the guilt, and in His own time will 
 allot the punishment of the Turkish Empire, whose dark history of 
 oppression and unscrupulous violation of the sacredness of human 
 
422 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 rights will surely ere long consign it to judgment at the hands of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 A further characteristic of the non-Christian estimate of man is a 
 failure to recognize the fact of human brotherhood. We should place 
 
 an emphasis here upon the word " human," since 
 
 An inadequate concep- our reference IS to the larger brotherhood of 
 
 tion of brotherhood, humanity which Christianity teaches. There is in 
 
 the higher ethnic faiths, especially Buddhism and 
 Mohammedanism, a recognition of a narrower tie of fraternity, based 
 upon religious or national affinity. It is, however, only the shadow of 
 Christian brotherhood, an artificial and forced relationship founded upon 
 religious or political expediency, rather than rooted in the deep spir- 
 itual consciousness of a common love and a common destiny through 
 living union with a divine Lord and Saviour. In the larger outlook . 
 of a common origin, a common provision for redemption, and a 
 universal mission of love and service, it gives no sign of the grander 
 ideal of Christianity. That this larger recognition is characteristic of 
 Christianity needs no proof, and that Christianity carries it into heathen 
 society is a matter of history and experience. It is the Christian spirit 
 among native converts of India which has established at Madras a 
 " Native Christian Association " for promoting the personal and social 
 interests, while at the same time advancing the influence of Christian- 
 ity through the " manifestation of a higher character in the individual, 
 and a more beneficent spirit in the corporate life." It is in harmony 
 with the historic tendencies of Christianity to promote mutual helpful- 
 ness, and plan for the higher progress of humanity. 
 
 Another estimate of society which is characteristic of the non- 
 Christian outlook is that of predominant selfishness and a prevalent 
 
 indifference to the public good. Uhlhom has con- 
 Meagre philanthropic yincingly shown, in his " Conflict of Christianity 
 
 results of heathen . , ^ , . „ . . 
 
 systems. With Heathenism, that all pagan antiquity was 
 
 thoroughly egoistic. " Self was the centre around 
 which everything revolved. A man of the .ancient world despised 
 whatever he drew into his service, and hated everything which opposed 
 him." 1 The spirit of benevolence and altruism introduced by Chris- 
 tianity, which finds its highest spiritual expression in the missionary 
 outlook and purpose of the Christian religion, is at variance with the 
 whole temper of the heathen world. The conception, no less than the 
 working, of this ideal is so out of harmony with the previous outlook 
 of converts to Christianity that it is difficult to bring them to a full and 
 1 " Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,'' p. 192. 
 
Dr. Pauline Root. 
 Madura, India. 
 
 Dr, Kate C. Woodhui l, 
 Foochow, China. 
 
 Dr. Grace Kimball, 
 Van, Turkey. 
 
 Dr. Julia Bissell, 
 Ahmednagar, India. 
 
 Dr. Mary A. Holbrook, 
 Kobe, Japan. 
 
 Medical Missionaries — Woman's Board of Missions. 
 (Conffreg-ational— Auxiliary to A. B. C. F. M.) 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 423 
 
 generous practical recognition of it. It is something so new and diffi- 
 cult of comprehension by the average mind of man that even Christen- 
 dom is not entirely free from the subtle sway of the pagan conception. 
 Israel of old could hardly grasp the significance of missions, and to this 
 day there is need of a far more loyal and generous appreciation on 
 the part of the Christian public of this regnant thought of the Gospel. 
 Christendom is too busy, or too preoccupied, or does not realize as it 
 should, the value of an individual soul in God's sight, although, to its 
 immortal honor, the Christian Church, and to some extent its environ- 
 ment of Christendom, is recognizing with new enthusiasm the supreme 
 obligations of spiritual unselfishness as a first law of the Gospel. Even 
 mission fields are bringing forth fruit, and missions are reduplicating 
 themselves abroad. 
 
 This new outlook dawns slowly both in Christendom and outside of 
 it, but it comes with the acceptance of Christianity. The vision seems 
 to tarry, but the prospect brightens. The world needs this new atmo- 
 sphere in the home, this new spirit in the community, this new force in 
 the nation, this new estimate of the value of man as in God's likeness 
 and in God's care. Have we not, even in contemporary European his- 
 tory, evidence at once painful and startling that the heart of civilization 
 does not yet beat at all true to the idea of human brotherhood? This 
 is the spirit of Christian missions, in whose outlook upon humanity 
 " there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there 
 is neither male nor female : for all are one in Christ Jesus." 
 
 IV 
 
 Christianity provides a code of ethics which is both essentially 
 valuable and sufficiently authoritative. The value of an ethical system 
 depends upon several vital points : ( i ) The ideals 
 should be correct. (2) The precepts should be The true criteria of 
 
 ^ ' '^ "^ , value in ethical 
 
 right. (3) The motive should be sufficient. (4) systems. 
 
 The authority should be supreme. Tested by 
 these criteria the value of various systems of ethics in force among 
 non-Christian peoples becomes open to question ; yet an imperfect or a 
 partially effective ethical code may not be without a certain value. It 
 may be good and useful in some particulars or up to a given point, and 
 even though it may be positively objectionable in some respects, yet its 
 usefulness as a whole may not be entirely destroyed by this fact. The 
 ethics of Confucianism and Buddhism, for example, whatever may be the 
 
424 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 imperfection which characterizes them, have nevertheless differentiated 
 the existing civilization of Asiatic nations from barbarism and bestial sav- 
 agery. They have accomplished this, however, because there is in them 
 something of essential excellence, and owing to the fact that they teach 
 many things which are found in more perfect form in the Christian code. 
 They reflect the natural conscience of man, and represent, although in 
 a disproportionate and disjointed system, much of the ethical content 
 of primitive revelation and of the later Hebrew Decalogue. In fact, 
 the ethics of non-Christian religious systems, where they have not 
 been made subservient to evil desires and prostituted in fleshly compro- 
 mise, are in a large sense the analogue of Christian ethics, but in an 
 emasculated state — the life-essence having been withdrawn, the moral 
 force weakened, and the impelling motive enfeebled. We may change 
 the illustration and say that the various parts of the skeleton are to 
 be found in a more or less imperfect state, but without proper arti- 
 culation, and of course unclothed with flesh and destitute of vital 
 energy. Life, the symbol of authority and the mystic sign of an in- 
 dwelling spirit of power, is wanting. The graces and signs of right- 
 eous living — in biblical language, the "fruits of the Spirit" — as the 
 culmination and crown of a vitalized ethical code, are not present. 
 
 The best side of ethnic religions is, however, their ethical teachings. 
 
 A religious system can hardly afford to fail altogether in its theory of 
 
 morals. Even whatever of moral laxity, judged 
 
 The importance of the by Christian Standards, exists in the ethics of Bud- 
 
 ethical element in , . , , . 
 
 religions. dhism or Mohammedanism, for example, is stoutly 
 
 defended by the disciples of those religions as cor- 
 rect a,nd unobjectionable from an ethical point of view. No serious 
 religious system can safely risk its influence and its prestige by uphold- 
 ing a moral code which offends the universal natural conscience of 
 mankind. We do not expect, therefore, to find that the ethical stan- 
 dards of the great non-Christian religions do serious violence to the 
 natural instincts and the imperative moral judgments of mankind. Their 
 defects and failures will appear rather by comparison with the revealed 
 will of God and the religious sanctions which He has established for 
 the guidance of human conduct. It will be found that their basis of 
 morals is insufficient and that the source of authority has been perverted. 
 It is because the wisdom which propounds is inadequate, and the power 
 which commands is deficient, that non-Christian ethics reveal such fatal 
 weakness, and result in such an abortive practical outcome. 
 
 Another point which deserves emphasis in this connection is that 
 ethics as at present under discussion are not confined merely to the 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 425 
 
 theoretical code, but include also the practical outcome as historically 
 exemplified in the moral life and conduct. By Buddhist ethics, for 
 example, we mean not only the didactic code of 
 morals covering the right and wrong of conduct "°* "=*" *•>* ^»'"« "^ 
 which is taught by Buddhism, but the resul- *° *' verified'?"" 
 tant which we find in the life and conduct of 
 its followers. A theory of ethics is of little value if it is not exempli- 
 fied in practice and if it has not the power to vitalize the moral nature 
 and govern the conduct of its adherents. The serious point of difference 
 between the ethics of Christianity and Buddhism is not chiefly in the 
 content of their respective codes, but in the spiritual completeness and 
 the impelling power towards realization which are characteristic of Chris- 
 tianity. Christian morals are not only pure and perfect in substance, 
 but they are gifted with that subtle energy which marks the Gospel as 
 a spiritual force. They are not concerned simply with what ought to 
 be, but tliey demand realization in the life and conduct. In estimat- 
 ing the ethics of ethnic systems we should not fail to take into consid- 
 eration, in addition to the morals which are taught in the code, those 
 which are revealed in the life. When we speak, therefore, of the im- 
 portance of transformed ethics in non-Christian lands we refer not 
 only to the necessity of a new ethical code, but to the urgency of a 
 new moral life. In fact, the advent of another system of ethics would 
 be useless if it did not result in a corresponding change of conduct. 
 An additional emphasis is given to this point if we note that even the 
 theoretical ethics of ethnic religions are virtually out of sight in the 
 practical life of the people. Society" is ruled rather by the law of cus- 
 tom — the ethics of the status quo—Xhzxi by the ideal code which is 
 recorded in the books. Ethical principles have been largely supplanted 
 by the unwritten law of custom, so that when we speak of Buddhist 
 ethics, for example, we are referring for all practical purposes to Bud- 
 dhist living rather than to its ideal code. The latter, although not per- 
 fect, is quite a different thing from the ethics which we find embodied 
 in the moral habits of the people. Even their moral judgments have, 
 as a rule, drifted away from the code, and reflect rather that environ- 
 ment of traditional custom which has become the standard of social 
 morality. The ethical development has been chiefly in the wrong di- 
 rection, and has culminated in fixed habits of life, which have become 
 the reigning force in society rather than the authoritative moral code 
 which is in the background. The resultant life is either utilitarian or 
 hedonistic or ascetic rather than strictly moral in its controlling motives. 
 It lacks sound fibre, has little, if any, consciousness of God, a feeble 
 
426 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and darkened realization of duty, and no clear and commanding stan- 
 dard of right and wrong. 
 
 In the previous lecture we examined the practical outcome of the 
 
 ethnic rehgions as revealed in their impress upon the personality, with 
 
 a view to gauging their social influence and value. 
 
 The scope and purpose -^e found reason to regard their effect as depress- 
 or the present discus- , ■,,■,,• , . , , 
 
 sion. mg and enfeebhng, and, m large measiu-e, destruc- 
 
 tive of the nobility and stamina of the personality 
 as a social dynamic. In the present lecture we shall scrutinize rather 
 their ethical basis and outcome, both as recorded in the code and re- 
 vealed in the life. Our object will be to make it plain that the world 
 needs the ethics of Christianity, that the ethnic systems do not provide 
 a substantial basis for morals, nor the authority, the motive, the stan- 
 dard, the ethical content, the sustaining energy, and the spiritual glow 
 which are necessary in a practical code in order to secure individual vic- 
 tory as. well as the moral progress of society. With this purpose in view 
 we must examine in some detail the ethical structure and the under- 
 lying religious basis of the more important of the ethnic faiths. 
 
 I . The ethics of Buddhism, regarded either as a code or as a life, if 
 closely scrutinized, fail to retain that position of eminence which is 
 claimed for them by some apologists. High praise has been accorded 
 to Buddhism because of its ethical system, which certainly has many 
 excellencies ; and were it based upon theistic premises and inspired 
 with the Christian rather than the Buddhist ideals, it would be a power- 
 ful instrument in the establishment of a high morality. It is the inter- 
 pretation of the code in harmony with Buddhist notions, and the 
 consequent import given to its terms, which ruin its usefulness as an 
 incentive to sound and true morality. 
 
 A word of caution is in place here as to the impropriety of reading 
 
 Christian ethical conceptions into Buddhist phraseology. Whatever 
 
 significance Buddhist terms may have, they can- 
 
 The ethics of Buddhism not be regarded as synonymous with similar ex- 
 
 — some introductory . . _, . . 
 
 remarks. pressions m the Christian code. If we find, for 
 
 example, that "doubt" is forbidden, it must be 
 borne in mind that it is doubt as to the truth of Buddhist doctrine ; and 
 so " ignorance " should be interpreted as ignorance of the teachings of 
 Buddhism. The word " law " means always the Buddhist conception 
 of law, as having no reference to a supreme Law-giver, but rather to 
 that " unchangeable order of things according to which we must regu- 
 late our lives if we would escape pain." The Buddhist knows no law 
 of the conscience and no law of God. Again, when the soul or the 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 427 
 
 self or the individuality is spoken of, we must not forget that, in the 
 estimation of the Buddhist, all separate existence of an independent 
 entity known as the soul is a delusion. Man possesses no independent 
 existence, and cannot say, " This is I," as he is only a transient, perish- 
 ing part of a great whole.i When the word " salvation " occurs it is 
 not to be understood at all in the evangelical Christian sense. No 
 Buddhist " seeks for any salvation which he is himself to enjoy in any 
 future world." It pertains to his present life, and it signifies deliver- 
 ance from those delusions, desires, and apprehensions which the Bud- 
 dhist creed repudiates. Nothing is known about salvation from sin or 
 its penalty .2 Again, in the " Noble Eightfold Path " there is a strenu- 
 ous demand for Tightness in several particulars, but the " right " things 
 which are called for are to be understood and interpreted in accordance 
 with Buddhist conceptions.' The " saintship " of the Buddhist code is 
 that consummation which is contemplated in Arahatship, or the becom- 
 ing worthy in the Buddhist sense. All idea of " immortality " must be 
 interpreted in the light of the doctrine of Karma, in accordance with 
 which man is simply a link in the chain of cause and effect, and thus 
 his immortality means that he cannot escape from the law of Karma, 
 that is, he will only continue to exist in the sense of forming a part of 
 the endless chain of sequences.* It is plain that Buddhist terms can- 
 not be understood in the Christian sense without a reversal of their 
 meaning. The idea that there is a community of life and spirit be- 
 tween the two, or that Christianity is in any way derived from or de- 
 pendent upon Buddhism for its history and teachings, is wholly without 
 foundation, as the highest authorities- upon Buddhist literature unhesi- 
 tatingly aflSrm.5 
 
 Buddhism is a gospel of deliverance from the miseries of existence. 
 Its method is through man's unaided mastery of himself and victory 
 over his environment. It draws a sharp distinction between the laity, 
 or the rank and file of its adherents, and a superior order known as the 
 " Brotherhood of the Elect " {Sangho), consisting of all those who sepa- 
 rate themselves from the rest of mankind by entering upon the struggle 
 after Arahatship and the attainment of Nirvana. The members of 
 
 1 Rhys Davids, "Buddhism: Its History and Literature," pp. 125-12?, 133, 
 142. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 131, 149, 150, 154. 
 
 » Kellogg, " The Light of Asia and the Light of the World," pp. 301-304. 
 « Rhys Davids, " Buddhism: Its History and Literature," pp. 128, 129. 
 5 Cf. EUinwood, " Oriental Religions and Christianity," pp. 164-170! Grant, 
 " The Religions of the World," p. 129. 
 
428 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 this order are called bhikshus, or monks, and samanos, or ascetics. 
 The two classes are frequently called aryos, that is, the noble or elect, 
 
 so that the expression the "Brotherhood of the 
 
 Some distinctions Elect " may be regarded as a comprehensive des- 
 
 to be noted. ignation of those who are in rank above the laity 
 
 and are seeking for sainthood. When they have 
 attained the rank of saints they are known as Arahats, or possessors of 
 Arahatship. These latter only are possible candidates for Nirvana, a 
 height of attainment to which no layman aspires or can expect to reach. 
 The most that a layman can hope for is a favorable rebirth, and it is 
 this discouraging prospect of endless rebirths from which the Arahat 
 hopes to be delivered. 
 
 It will be noted that the basis of this system is pessimism.^ Its un- 
 derlying postulate is the misery, not chiefly of moral degradation, but 
 rather of physical existence. By existence is understood our career 
 
 1 The following readily accessible sources of information, to most of which re- 
 peated references are made in this section, are recommended to those who desire to 
 study further in popular literary form the ethics of Buddhism : 
 
 " A Buddhist Catechism," by Subhadra Bhikshu (New York and London, G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, 1895). 
 
 "Buddhism" (the Duff Lectures, 1888), by Sir Monier Monier-Williams 
 (London, Murray, 1889). 
 
 " Buddhism: Its History and Literature," byT. W. Rhys Davids, LL.D., Ph.D. 
 (New York and London, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1896). 
 
 " Buddhism '' (a manual in the series of " Non-Christian Religious Systems "), 
 by T. W. Rhys Davids, LL.D., Ph.D. (sixteenth edition, London, S. P. C. K. ; 
 New York, E. & J. B. Young & Co., 1894). 
 
 " Christianity and Buddhism," byT. Sterling Berry, D.D. (London, S. P. C. K. ; 
 New York, E. & J. B. Young & Co., n. d.). 
 
 "The Light of Asia and the Light of the World," by S. H. Kellogg, D.D. 
 (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1885). 
 
 " Or.ental Religions and Christianity," by F. F. EUinwood, D.D. (New York, 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892). 
 
 " Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ," by Marcus Dods, D.D. (London, Hodder 
 & Stoughton, 1893). 
 
 " The Religions of the World," by G. M. Grant, D.D., LL.D. (London, A. & 
 C. Black; New York, A. D. F. Randolph & Co., 1895). 
 
 Articles on Buddhism in Bettany's " The World's Religions," " Religious Sys- 
 tems of the World," " The Faiths of the World" (Giles Lectures), and "Present- 
 Day Tracts," No. 46. 
 
 Article entitled " A Plain Account of Buddhism," by John Beames, B.C.S., in 
 The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review for July, 1896, and January, 1897. 
 
 Articles entitled " Nine Centuries of Buddhism," by F. Becker Shawe, of Ladak, 
 Tibet, in The Missionary Review of the World for April, May, June, July, and 
 August, 1896. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 429 
 
 here upon earth, involving as it does sorrow and suffering as an inevi- 
 table lot, and also our continued existence in the interminable cycles of 
 rebirth. Death is, therefore, simply a phase in the 
 changes of existence, to be followed by rebirth The pcBsimistic basis 
 in accordance with the good or evil we have of Buddhism, 
 
 done in this life, or, in other words, in harmony 
 with our Karma, by which our present state has been determined and 
 which will decide hereafter the character of future rebirths. Karma 
 simply represents the inexorable workings of the law of causahty, by 
 which absolute justice is meted out to every human being, as deter- 
 mined by his deserts, whether they be good or evil.^ The problem of 
 Buddhism is, therefore, how to escape from existence with its attendant 
 miseries. It offers no help in securing this deKverance from any source 
 other than man's unaided power to master himself. Man must in his 
 own strength enter alone upon a desperate struggle to suppress his " will 
 to live," 2 to annihilate his desires and passions, reverse the constitu- 
 tional tendencies of his nature, triumph over everything in his earthly 
 environment which would attract or chain him to life, and become su- 
 perior in his mental state to everything earthly and material. It is part 
 of his victory to loathe his physical self, to despise every pleasant and 
 desirable thing connected with ordinary earthly life, and become sepa- 
 rated from his fellow-men in a reahn of shadowy and colorless mental 
 exaltation. 
 
 It will occur to us at once, as we compare this system with Chris- 
 tianity, that it is established upon the basis of man's wisdom ; it repre- 
 sents blinded and staggering humanity, crushed and 
 dismayed by the insoluble problem of sorrow, and The secret of its wide 
 bafHed by the dismal enigma of existence, search- extension, 
 
 ing for light and groping after a way of escape. 
 It arose amid the intellectual and spiritual darkness of India six cen- 
 turies before the Christian era, when the consolations of religion and 
 the inspirations of morahty were so sadly needed. The very fact 
 that Buddhism proposed a way of deliverance from the sorrows and 
 miseries of hfe was in that age and in that environment its secret of 
 success. It brought also a message of universalism, in opposition to 
 the limitations of caste, and advocated an ethical system in place of 
 the burdensome and elaborate ritualism of Brahmanism. Its timehness, 
 as well as the purport of its message, was the secret of its expansion. 
 It was a creed of action, a code of virtue, as opposed to wearisome 
 
 » "A Buddhist Catechism," p. 48. 
 « im., pp. 47, 48. 
 
430 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ceremonialism. Man was to be put upon his mettle, to achieve his 
 own victory, to conquer his destiny, to triumph over hfs adverse envi- 
 ronment, and win his way to peace and rest by a process of subjuga- 
 tion, elimination, and suppression. It resolves itself, however, into a 
 plan of salvation by social suicide. It proposes triumph by abdication ; 
 it advocates escape through separation and isolation. In the end it 
 emasculates manhood and withdraws the individual from the service 
 and conflict of human life to an ideal but useless seclusion.^ 
 
 Buddhism in its original conception is an ethical rather than a re- 
 ligious system. It dispenses with some of the essential features of a 
 
 religion, especially of the Christian religion. It is 
 
 Its defects as a reUgious Without a Creator or a supreme personal God. It 
 
 system. teaches no atonement, since each man is his own 
 
 saviour. It has no place for repentance and faith, 
 in the religious sense of these terms. It is without prayer, an exercise 
 which is resolved entirely into meditation. It denies independent in- 
 dividual existence of the soul. It teaches no system of rewards and 
 punishments, and has no place for the supernatural. In theory it is 
 without sacrifices and ceremonies, concerning which it declares that 
 they are unavailing and useless.^ While these are its doctrinal teach- 
 ings, yet we find in its historical development that it has reversed many 
 of these dogmatic positions. Its atheism is practically abandoned in 
 the honor which is paid to the Buddha and to various supreme beings, 
 
 1 " In the gospel of the Buddha we are told that the whole world lieth in suffer- 
 ing. In the Gospel of Christ the whole world lieth in wickedness. ' Glory in your 
 sufferings ; rejoice in them ; make them steps towards heaven, ' says the Gospel of 
 Christ. ' Away with all suffering; stamp it out, for it is the plague of humanity,' 
 says the gospel of Buddha. ' The whole world is enslaved by sin,' says the Chris- 
 tian Gospel. ' The whole world is enslaved by illusion, ' says the gospel of Buddha. 
 ' Sanctify your affections,' says the one. 'Suppress them utterly,' says the other. 
 ' Cherish your body and present it as a living sacrifice to God, ' says the Christian 
 Gospel. ' Get rid of your body as the greatest of all curses,' says the Buddhist. 
 ' We are God's workmanship,' says the Christian Gospel, ' and God works in us, 
 and by us, and through us.' ' We are our own workmanship,' says the gospel of 
 Buddha, ' and no one works in us but ourselves.' Lastly, the Christian Gospel 
 teaches us to prize the gift of personal life as the most sacred, the most precious, of 
 all God's gifts. ' Life is real, life is earnest,' it seems to say, in the words of the 
 great American poet ; and it bids us thirst, not for death, not for extinction, but for 
 the living God ; whereas the Buddhist doctrine stigmatises all thirst for life as an 
 ignorant blunder, and sets forth, as the highest of all aims, utter extinction of per- 
 sonal existence." — Sir Monier Monier-Williams, in an address at the anniversary of 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1886. 
 
 2 In confirmation of the above statements consult " A Buddhist Catechism," pp. 
 51, 52, 63, 82, 84, 87, 76, 67 (note), 88, 64, 65. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 431 
 
 known by different names in the several countries where it prevails.^ 
 Its ritual has been loaded with ceremonialism ; it worships images and 
 relics ; and in that extensive phase of it known as Lamaism it has sur- 
 passed all other religions in its mechanical facilities for prayer. Its 
 prayer-wheels, its formulae, especially the mystical " six syllables," which 
 are endlessly repeated, whirled about in the wheels, turned by water, 
 wind, and hand power, printed upon pieces of cloth to flutter in the 
 breezes, and carved in thousands of places upon rocks and walls, are 
 all mechanical expedients for endless prayer " by mouth, water, wind, 
 and hand.' 2 Do we wonder that Buddhism is characterized by a 
 shocking lack of reverence for a superior power, and that it is a sys- 
 tem of the most intense and unreHeved legalism? The Buddha saved 
 himself and made himself perfect,^ and this is the one law for all his 
 followers.* 
 
 The four great foundation truths of Buddhism are designated by 
 Dr. Menzies in his " History of ReUgion." 5 So far as the laity {upasa- 
 kos) are concerned, the ethical code which applies 
 to them may be summarized as follows: (i) Thou The specifications of its 
 shalt not destroy life— apphcable to animal as ethical code, 
 
 well as human hfe. (2) Thou shalt not steal. 
 (3) Thou shalt not commit adultery. (4) Thou shalt not lie. (5) 
 Thou shalt not drink intoxicating liquors. To this number three others 
 may be added, which a layman may observe as a matter of merit, or 
 
 1 Dods, " Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ," pp. 181-185. 
 
 2 The Missionary Review of the World, June, 1896, pp. 416-4ZO. 
 
 3 " A Buddhist Catechism," pp. 5, 40. 
 
 4 " Buddhism teaches the highest kindliness and wisdom without a personal God ; 
 the highest understanding without revelation ; a moral order of the world and just 
 compensation which are of necessity consummated on the principle of the laws of 
 nature and of our own being ; a continuity of individuality without an immortal soul ; 
 an eternal beatitude without a local heaven ; a possibility of redemption without a 
 vicarious redeemer; a salvation at which each one is his own savior, and which can 
 be attained by one's own strength, and already gained in this life and upon this earth 
 without prayer, sacrifice, penances, and outward rites, without consecrated priests, 
 without the mediation of saints, and without the action of divine grace."— Ibid., p. 89. 
 
 5 " I. The Noble Truth of Suffering. Birth is suffering, decay is suffering, ill- 
 ness is suffering, death is suffering. Presence of objects we hate is suffering, sepa- 
 ration from objects we love is suffering, not to obtain what we desire is suffermg. 
 Briefly, the fivefold clinging to existence is suffering. 
 
 " 2. The Noble Truth of the Cause of Suffering. Thirst that leads to rebirth, 
 accompanied by pleasure and lust, finding its delight here and there. This thirst is 
 threefold, namely, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, thirst for prosperity. 
 
 " 3. The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering. It ceases with the com- 
 plete cessation of this thirst, a cessation which consists in the absence of every pas- 
 
432 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 may disregard if he prefers. They are intended as " counsels of per- 
 fection," and are especially important only upon certain sacred occa- 
 sions. These are as follows: (6) Not to eat at prohibited seasons. 
 (7) To abstain from dancing, the singing of worldly songs, the visiting 
 of public plays and musical exhibitions. (8) To avoid the use of orna- 
 ments of every kind, perfumes, oils, and ointments — in short, anything 
 that leads to vanity.^ The commandments which are incumbent upon 
 the bhikshus (monks) form a still higher code, and include the eight 
 rules already mentioned, with the substitution of strict celibacy in place 
 of the third, and the addition of two other commandments, as follows : 
 (9) To abandon the use of luxurious beds, to sleep on a hard, low 
 couch, and to avoid all and every worldly vanity. (10) To dwell 
 always in voluntary poverty. There is still a third or highest code, 
 which is intended for Arahats, or those who are in the way of saintship. 
 The substance of this exalted law is included in what is known as the 
 " seven jewels of the law," which are to be strictly observed, and in the 
 " ten fetters " from which the candidate for saintship must free himself.^ 
 The marked distinction between the laity and the priesthood in the 
 application of these different codes has resulted in a degree of laxity 
 and indifference to all ethical requirements on the 
 
 The status of the Bud- ,,,. ,.,, ,,, l, 
 
 dhist laity as con- part of the laity which has placed them by them- 
 
 trastedwiththatofthe gelvcs and freed them largely from all moral re- 
 higher orders. . „, . „ . , . , 
 
 stramts. They are practically without oversight 
 on the part of the superior orders, and are left to live as they will, in 
 accordance with their own inclinations. They are accountable to no 
 one, and live pretty much as they please. In fact, they are little ac- 
 
 sion, with the abandoning of this thirst, with the deliverance from it, with the 
 destruction of desire. 
 
 "4. TheJiioblelTUt^oifhc Path which leads to the Cessation of Suffering. The 
 holy Eightfold Path ; that is to say, Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, 
 Right Conduct, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Endeavour, Right Memory, Right 
 Meditation."— Page 365. 
 
 1 " A Buddhist Catechism," pp. 60, 61. 
 
 2 The " seven jewels of the law '' are as follows : " The four earnest meditations ; 
 the fourfold great struggle against error ; the four roads to saintship ; the five moral 
 powers ; the five organs of spiritual sense ; the seven kinds of wisdom ; and the noble 
 eightfold path." 
 
 The " ten fetters " to be overcome, according to Dr. Rhys Davids, are as follows : 
 " The delusion of self ; doubt ; dependence on rites ; sensuality, or bodily passions j 
 hatred ; love of life on earth ; desire for life in heaven ; pride ; self-righteousness ; 
 ignorance." 
 
 For a full exposition of the " jewels " and the " tetters " consult Rhys Davids, 
 " Buddhism: Its History and Literatiire," Lecture IV. and Lecture V. 
 
First Christian College m the East. Built by Carey and his associates in 1819. 
 Carey's house, in which he died, visible on the left. 
 
 Ser-ampore College, Bengal. 
 
 Senate House of Calcutta University on the left. Presidency College on the right. 
 1 he bquare is one of the most important centres of student life in the East. 
 
 College Square, Calcutta, India. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 433 
 
 quainted with the moral teachings of Buddhism, which have hardly any 
 perceptible influence over their Kves. They are not candidates for 
 saintship, nor are they seeking to attain Nirvana. They know nothing 
 of the " Noble Eightfold Path " as a rule of conduct. The sense of 
 obligation is feeble, the consciousness of duty as an impelling motive 
 has little, if any, determining sway. The layman's attitude to Bud- 
 dhist ethics is, therefore, one of practical indifference.i In the case of 
 the priesthood and the candidates for Arahatship the code is one of 
 strict asceticism, withdrawing them from contact with human life, and 
 segregating them in a special order, in which strict celibacy, poverty, 
 and mendicancy, attended with mystical meditation and severe strug- 
 gles after a superiority to earthly environment and to the ordinary con- 
 stitution of man, are characteristic features. It will be seen that in the 
 case of laymen this superior code is entirely inapplicable and inopera- 
 tive.' In the case of priests and seekers after Arahatship its application 
 involves such isolation, asceticism, and practical withdrawal from con- 
 tact with society that it robs them of all capacity for social service. 
 
 There are several points in the Buddhist ethical system which de- 
 serve special notice if we are to discover its defects and recognize its 
 incapacity to meet the social needs of man. Its 
 ideals are unworthy, profitless, and obscure. They gome characteristics to 
 have no reference to the development of individ- ^« specially noted, 
 ual character. There is no goal of positive attain- 
 ment in sight. The result desired is negative, consisting of the sup- 
 pression, elimination, and evacuation of the social relationships and the 
 nobler aspects of manhood. Escape is the key-word, asceticism is the 
 method, Nirvana is the goal. Existence is that which is to be escaped 
 from, and in the process nature as revealed in the spiritual, intellectual, 
 and physical constitution of man is to be trampled upon and stamped 
 out as an evil and hateful thing. Individuality, as has been noted, is 
 not only undesirable in itself, but is a delusion, since the develop- 
 ment of individual character is an impossibihty, and even if possible 
 would simply make man a more helpless and wearied victim of the 
 evils of existence and the curse of rebirth. The only identity of indi- 
 viduality which Buddhism allows is that of an endless chain of sequences, 
 linking cause and effect in unbroken continuance, known as the doc- 
 trine of Karma. This may be interpreted as a resistless destiny, deter- 
 mined by the fact that man reaps what he sows, his life here determin- 
 
 1 Cf. in confirmation of this statement a series of articles by F. Becker Shawe, 
 of Ladak, Tibet, entitled "Nine Centuries of Buddhism," in The Missionary Re- 
 view of the World, April, 1896, to August, 1896, 
 
434 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ing the character of his rebirths hereafter. We find in this nothing 
 corresponding to our conception of the soul as the seat of permanent 
 character ; in fact, it denounces what it calls this " heresy of individ- 
 uality." Its conception of sentient being is that it is a congeries of 
 qualities (skandhas) consisting of five constituents : material attributes, 
 sensations, ideas, tendencies, and thoughts. The resultant is sentient 
 existence, but under conditions of impermanence.^ 
 
 There is, therefore, an entire absence of the inspiration which is 
 based upon the consciousness of permanent individuality. Man is sim- 
 ply a part of the moving current of destiny, and 
 What is the Buddhist is swept on to a fate which cannot be distinguished 
 victory? Ixovo. obliviou. The only victory to which he can 
 
 aspire is somehow to escape his destiny, and the 
 method by which he hopes to attain deliverance is destructive rather 
 than constructive. After he has passed through a round of experience 
 which is implied in asceticism, celibacy, mendicancy, withdrawal from 
 the world, suppression of desire, contempt of existence, all-conquering 
 equanimity, sublimated mysticism, and sublime independence of the 
 rest of mankind, he is about as useless and inane a specimen of emas- 
 culated humanity as can be conceived of ; yet this is his great victory.^ He 
 has been retired from the world and crowned with Arahatship. He has 
 attained a perfection so subtle that it cannot be described except in 
 negative terms. He has become so saintly that he is absolutely worth- 
 less to the world. He has escaped from self, and from all the misery 
 which selfhood involves, and has passed into a realm of ecstatic inanity.' 
 What that state is which is popularly known as Nirvana is appa- 
 rently beyond the power of the most learned students of Buddhism 
 clearly to determine. A careful perusal of the 
 The mystery of Writings of Buddhist scholars leaves one in a maze 
 Nirvana. pf perplexity as to whether Nirvana means anni- 
 
 hilation or simply freedom from the weariness and 
 pain of existence.* The definition of the term given in "A Buddhist 
 Catechism " (p. 45) is as follows ; " A condition of the mind and spirit 
 
 1 Rhys Davids, " Manual of Buddhism," pp. 90-93. 
 
 ^ " The most sacred bonds that unite man to man — the ties of home life and of 
 affectionate friendship — were absolutely condemned as hindrances to spiritual pro- 
 gress ; and no place was found for a Being who might alike be adored and loved with 
 all the heart and all the strength and all the mind."— Berry, " Christianity and Bud- 
 dhism," p. 103. 
 
 » Kellogg, " The Light of Asia and the Light of the World," p. 350. 
 
 « " What is Nirvdna? If we go back to the literal meaning of the Sanskrit 
 word, NirvAnam (pronounced in Pali Nibb&nam), we find that it means extinction, 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 435 
 
 when all will to live, all striving for existence and enjoyment, has be- 
 come extinct, and with it every passion, every desire, all covetousness, 
 every fear, all ill-will, and every pain. It is a condition of perfect 
 inner peace, accompanied by unswerving certainty of salvation gained, 
 a condition words cannot describe, and which the imagination of a 
 worldly-minded person would strive in vain to paint. Only one who 
 has himself experienced it knows what Nirvana is.'' 
 
 This is further explained in a note appended to the above definition, 
 which reads as follows : " In spite of the correct explanation of Nir- 
 vana, given long ago by distinguished scholars, there still prevail among 
 most Europeans curious conceptions concerning it. Literally translated. 
 Nirvana means : Being extinct, being blown out, as of a flame extin- 
 guished by the wind, or which expires from want of nourishment. 
 From this it was believed that the inference to be drawn was that 
 Nirvana signified ' nothing.' This is an erroneous opinion ; Nirvana is 
 rather a condition of the highest spirituality, of which, however, no one 
 can have an adequate conception who is still fettered by earthly ties. 
 What is it, then, that is extinguished or blown out in Nirvana? The 
 will to live is extinguished — that striving for existence and enjoyment in 
 this or in another world ; extinguished is the error that material posses- 
 sions have any inner value or can endure ; extinguished is the flame of 
 sensuality or desire; extinguished for ever the wandering will-o'-the- 
 wisp of the I (ego). It is true, the perfect saint, the Arahat (only 
 such an one can attain Nirvana in this life), continues to dwell in the 
 body, for the effect of error and guilt in earher births, which has already 
 
 or, more strictly, the state of being blown out— as the flame of a candle is blown out. 
 But scholars have long been disputing whether in its application to Buddhism this word 
 means total annihilation or simply blissful existence. It maybe stated thus. That Nir- 
 vdna means extinction all admit. But the question is, What is it that is extinguished? 
 
 " Is it the man himself? If so, then Nirvdna means total annihilation. Is it 
 the man's passions? If so, then Nirvdna means a state of blissful rest, and freedom 
 from the pain of desire and existence. . . . 
 
 " The view most recently advocated by Oldenberg and others, and that which, 
 on the whole, seems to be nearest the truth, is that neither Buddha himself nor his 
 earlier disciples laid down any clear and definite dogma on this point. The Buddha 
 himself seems, in fact, to have shrunk at the last moment from the logical conse- 
 quences of his own arguments. They brought him to the brink of the awful unfath- 
 omable gulf of nothingness, and he recoiled from the prospect. He was asked 
 whether the ego, the self, exists after death. He gave no answer. Then he was 
 asked whether the ego, the self, perishes at death. Again he gave no answer. The 
 enquirer, not being able to obtain a reply, went away. Then his disciples asked him 
 why he gave no answer. He replied, because to say either yes or no to either of 
 these questions might engender error."— John Beames, B.C.S., in Tht Imperial 
 and Asiatic Quarterly Review, July, 1896, p. 155. 
 
436 CHRISTIAinanSSIOlirS^AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 begun to be active, and therefore represents itself as animated body in 
 temporality, cannot be made void ; but the body is perishable, the hour 
 soon comes when it passes away. Then nothing remains which might 
 induce a new rebirth, and the Arahat passes on to eternal peace, the 
 Parinirvana, the Nirvana beyond. Parinirvana in the sense of other 
 religious doctrines and scientiiic materialism is, it is true, total annihi- 
 lation, complete dissolution of individuality, for nothing remains in 
 Parinirvana which in any way corresponds to the human conception of 
 existence. But from the point of view of one who has attained the 
 degree of Arahat the world with all its phenomena is rather a ' nothing,' 
 a mirrored picture, a gleaming soap-bubble, a tormenting dream, and 
 Parinirvana the entrance into true being, into the eternal, the imperish- 
 able, where there is no state of differences, no strife, and no suffering." 
 
 Dr. Rhys Davids is a strenuous advocate of the view that Nirvana 
 is synonymous with perfected Arahatship, is attained, if at all, in this 
 life, and represents the ideal saintship of the successful Arahat, who, 
 however, passes on into final extinction beyond death ; but this extinc- 
 tion (Parinirvana) is not Nirvana, but rather the issue or result of it.i 
 
 In any case Nirvana cannot be the portion of laymen, but is reserved 
 
 for the Arahats. Arahatship becomes, therefore, simply another name 
 
 for sublimated egoism. It is in certain of its as- 
 
 The crown of the pects Self -mastery, but it is also, so far as the service 
 
 Arahat. gf mankind is concerned, self-negation. The ideal 
 
 Arahat is a man who is side-tracked off the main 
 
 line of altruistic aspiration and effort. He stands aloof from the world's 
 
 conflicts, out of touch with human development, profoundly satisfied 
 
 with his own serene isolation.^ The outcome of this system is pessi- 
 
 1 " Manual of Buddhism," pp. 111-123; " Buddhism: Its History and Litera- 
 ture," pp. 150-152, 163, 164. 
 
 2 " It [Buddhism] does not tell the ascetic to live in the world in order by his 
 teaching and example to raise it to a higher level. He is to pity the world, but to 
 pass it by and devote himself to solitude, abstraction, and indifference. Indeed, the 
 Eight-Fold Path itself is to be followed, not from love to one's neighbour, but as a 
 means of securing one's own release from the pain of existence. The eight right 
 things group themselves under three heads : Righteousness, Abstraction, Knowledge ; 
 and these in their turn lead to Nirvdna. But it has already been pointed out that 
 in order to attain Nirudna there must be total severance of the soul from all sublu- 
 nary affairs. If, therefore, a man loves his neighbour he breaks the rule of indiffer- 
 ence. An ancient text says : ' All pain and suffering on earth arise from that which 
 is dear to me. He, therefore, to whom nothing is dear is free from pain, and he who 
 strives to attain to that state in which there is no pain allows nothing in the world to 
 be dear to him.'"— 77(i» Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, July, 1896, 
 p. 157. Cf. also Ellinwood, " Oriental Religions and Christianity," p. 176. 
 
* -£4 "tr- '^' *}■'>»• 
 
 Dr. Clara Swain. The first lady physician entering the Foreign Mission service. 
 She was sent to India in 1869 by the Woman's Society of the M. E. M. S. 
 
 Woman's Colleg , Lucknow ( . I. E. M. S.) The first college for women in India. 
 Some First Contributions of Missions to India. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 437 
 
 mism as a social creed. There is no room for optimism so far as any 
 plan for the moral elevation of society is concerned. 
 
 We note further that the precepts of Buddhist ethics are obscure 
 and morally confusing. They are all aimed at escape from existence, and 
 have nothing to say about deliverance from sin. 
 In fact, the Christian conception of sin as the Moral confusion in 
 transgression of a divine law is unknown to Bud- ^"''pr''ecep\*s'!"'*' 
 dhism. The great evil to be contended against 
 is not disloyalty and disobedience to a supreme will, but is inherent in 
 the very fact of existence. Man's misery, therefore, is not traceable to 
 his sin, but to his existence, and there is no remedy except in his escape 
 from that environment in which he has been placed by the Creator. 
 The consequence is that the ethical precepts of Buddhism are intensely 
 legal, exceedingly detailed in their application, and involve a severe 
 struggle on the part of man, with no helper to aid him. He works out 
 his own deliverance with no reliance upon a higher power, with no place 
 for prayer, and no one to listen even should the heart cry out for help. 
 
 Then, again, the great motive which underlies the ethical aspiration 
 of Buddhism is selfish desire. In the case of laymen, as Arahatship is 
 not within the range of their hopes, even the 
 stimulus of selfish aspiration is absent, and they The absence of a noble 
 are left to themselves with hardly any command- motive, 
 
 ing motive influencing their lives. The Buddhist 
 laity are, therefore, almost universally in a state of moral indifference, 
 living commonplace lives, with hardly any outlook beyond their mate- 
 rial environment.! There is no moral struggle, no social aspiration, no 
 ethical impulse. Life becomes a careless existence, with little moral 
 nerve or serious purpose. Christian altruism based upon love of God 
 and love of humanity is only feebly, if at all, operative. 
 
 The elaborate but ineffective ethics of Buddhism have failed utterly 
 to arrest idolatry or to check polygamy and polyandry. They have 
 not produced a high standard of morality, nor have 
 they led mankind into the path of progress, or wherein Buddhist 
 stimulated the spirit of practical philanthropy. ethics have failed. 
 On the contrary, the growth of individual charac- 
 ter has been stunted, and social life has been kept on a level of moral 
 torpidity. Buddhist ethics have failed to adjust themselves even to the 
 requirements of the simpler and freer life of Eastern society, and it is 
 plain that they could not be reconciled with the more complicated de- 
 mands of modem industrial and economic progress. Present-day civ- 
 1 The Missionary Review of the World, May, 1896, pp. 327-332. 
 
438 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ilization would of necessity be compelled to ignore the whole system. 
 It is a simple fact that some of the most sterilizing and demoralizing 
 forms of social evil found in the non-Christian world are dominant in 
 lands where Buddhism prevails, and, although it would not be right 
 to charge these things directly to its account, yet it has done little in 
 past centmries to modify or remedy these vitiating customs, and there 
 is no prospect that it will do better in the future.^ There has been an 
 enormous development of monasticism under especially burdensome 
 conditions, so that all Buddhist society is loaded with a horde of use- 
 less drones.2 Ceremonialism, in spite of its repudiation, has had a 
 phenomenal development, while its ingenious mechanical devices for 
 devotion have never been surpassed in the history of formalism.* 
 
 That another code of ethics than the one identified with Buddhism 
 is needed for the highest welfare and perfection of human. society is, 
 therefore, evident. Another ethical foundation than that of the consti- 
 tution of natiue is necessary, since without a supreme personality as a 
 source of authority ethics become a more or less vague and uncertain 
 
 1 " This religion is not a social force; it aims not at a Kingdom of God to be 
 built up by the united efforts of multitudes of the faithful, but only at saving indi- 
 vidual souls, which in the act of being saved are removed beyond all activity and all 
 contact with the world. Buddhism, therefore, is not a power which makes actively 
 for civilisation. It is a powerful agent for the taming of passion and the prevention 
 of vagrant and lawless desires ; it tends, therefore, towards peace. But it offers no 
 stimulus to the realisation of the riches which are given to man in his own nature; 
 it checks rather than fosters enterprise ; it favours a dull conformity to rule rather 
 than the free cultivation of various gifts. Its ideal is to empty life of everything 
 active and positive rather than to concentrate energy on a strong purpose. It does 
 not train the affections to virtuous and harmonious action, but denies to them all 
 action, and consigns them to extinction. This condemnation it has incurred by 
 parting with that highest stimulus to human virtue and endeavour which lies in the 
 belief in a living God." — Menzies, " History of Religion," p. 379. 
 
 2 " Where are Buddhist charitable hospitals? Where free dispensaries? Where 
 orphanages? Where teachers of the deaf and dumb? Where asylums for the idiot 
 or the leper? We must go to Christian countries, and to the efforts of Christian 
 people in Buddhist countries, if we would see these. While Christian countries are 
 —very slowly and with many a halt and relapse, yet still surely— advancing, Bud- 
 dhist countries have been for centuries stationary, or are even, as Tibet and Mon- 
 golia, engaged in a retrograde movement." — F. Becker Shawe, in an article entitled 
 " Nine Centuries of Buddhism," in The Missionary Review of the World, August, 
 1896, pp. 583, 584. 
 
 s For a condensed r£sum€ of the defects of Buddhism, consult Grant, " The Re- 
 ligions of the World," pp. 147-157; Kellogg, " The Light of Asia and the Light of 
 the World," pp. 376, 377; and Dods. " Mohammed. Buddha, and Christ." pp. 169, 
 170. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 439 
 
 reflection of impersonal law. Another doctrine of responsibility, em- 
 phasizing the facts of sin and guilt, and recognizing the possibility of 
 pardon and deUverance, is essential to the culture 
 of moral character. A clearer standard of right ^'^'t'sup'puli^tV.'B^^^^^^ 
 and wrong is necessary for the guidance of conduct ^'''=* '^°^^ '^ *••"« •■ *o 
 and the accentuation of duty. Another ideal of ''"'"=''" P"e«"- 
 existence and its significance is required, unless life is to be altogether 
 misinterpreted and misused. There must be another theory of person- 
 ality, or soul existence ; another programme of a religious life and of 
 the application of the ethical code to all classes of men ; another view 
 of the claims of the unfortunate and the afflicted, who, in spite of the 
 supposed humanitarianism of Buddhism, are now despised and prac- 
 tically ostracized from the consolations and hopes of reUgion. There 
 must be another conception of man's duty to society, as involving a 
 call to service rather than the desire of isolation ; another view of the 
 essence of duty and the basis of obligation, which are now resolved 
 into selfish expediency ; another view of the sacredness of human nature 
 and the possibihties of regeneration, sanctification, and redemption 
 through the indwelhng of the Holy Spirit and the resurrection of the 
 body. There must be another conception of the sacredness and dig- 
 nity of the daily life of mankind, since no industrious and faithful son of 
 toil can now hope for the higher blessings of Buddhism, or be counted 
 other than an alien and an outcast from its choicest privileges, and that 
 for the very reason that he is walking in the humble path of earthly duty. 
 There must be a truer vision of the destiny of man in place of the dismal 
 doctrine of rebirths, the inexorable law of Karma, and the mysterious 
 annihilation which is incidental to Nirvana ; and, finally, there must be an 
 entirely new appreciation of the fact that man is in desperate need of 
 divine help, since the only practical outcome of present experience is 
 either foolish complacency or listless indifference. Buddhism fails to rec- 
 ognize the moral needs of man and is impotent to supply them. With all 
 its fine ethics, it is the most notable example of the policy of laissez-faire, 
 both in reUgion and sociology, which the annals of heathenism record. 
 2. Confucian ethics have produced apparently the best social status 
 we can find outside of Christendom. The social and domestic life of 
 Japan is largely the product of Confucianism, and 
 this is of coiurse true of China, so that in this The ethics of Confu- 
 respect both nations are representative. Pro- danism, 
 
 fessor Henry Satoh, of the Imperial Commercial 
 College, Tokyo, has stated that Buddhism is a failure among edu- 
 cated Japanese, and that the Confucian system of ethics is preeminent 
 
440 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 there.i Both of these great nations are favored above all others, apart from 
 Christendom, in having the influence upon their people of whatever is good 
 and helpful in Confucian morality and in its comparatively high ideals 
 of domestic and social life. That there are, however, grave and vital 
 defects in the ethical teachings, and especially in the moral forces of 
 Confucianism as compared with Christianity, cannot be denied. The 
 scope of its ethics is narrow, being confined to earthly relationships, 
 with exclusive reference to an earthly environment. Responsibility is 
 here narrowed and dwarfed; God is afar off, — in fact, unrecognized, — 
 while the motive is earth-born and temporal. The soiu'ce of authority 
 is impersonal and undefined ; it may be said even that it is hardly dis- 
 cernible. The filial relation, with the obligations it implies, has, in reality, 
 almost altogether taken the place of the God relation. The whole sys- 
 tem has drifted into a deification of the dead and a religious worship of 
 the departed, especially of immediate ancestors. " Serve the dead as the 
 living, the departed as the present," is the summary of the code of ances- 
 tral worship.* This is probably the least objectionable phase of idolatry 
 which the world presents ; yet how far is it beneath the worship of the 
 great Creator, and what a shadowy basis of moral obligation it affords! 
 The portentous complacency of the Chinese is nowhere more con- 
 spicuously illustrated than in the estimate of man which Confucianism 
 places at the basis of its moral system. "The 
 The Confucian view of heart of man," it is authoritatively stated, " indeed, 
 
 the moral status of . „ , , . , , „ . , 
 
 man. IS naturally perfectly upnght and correct." And 
 
 again : " He [man] is endowed with a natural rec- 
 titude all complete." 3 Where, then, is the standard of Confucian 
 morality? It is virtually in man himself, and what authority is back 
 of the law other than that of the one who is himself to honor and obey 
 the law? True, there are references to heaven and to nature, but they 
 represent an impersonal source of authority, of which the Chinese have 
 practically but a feeble consciousness, if, in fact, they recognize it at all. 
 The great unknown " It " of Confucianism cannot be regarded as a 
 possible substitute for the God of Christianity, who dwells in the heart, 
 makes sacred by His presence the home, and pervades with His influ- 
 ence the society of Christian communities. It is just here that Con- 
 fucianism, with its cold and elaborate ethical formulae, signally fails.* 
 
 1 The Gospel in all Lands, September, 1895, p. 449. 
 
 2 Faber, " A Systematic Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius," p. 81. 
 s Legge, " Christianity and Confucianism," p. 10. 
 
 ♦ " But after our most generous estimate of the results of Confucian culture) we 
 must at last confess that it has failed to realize its own ideal of the State, of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 441 
 
 It gives US its commandments without a commander. It provides a 
 court of justice, but withholds the judge. It establishes a system of 
 constitutional law with no executive. It has much to say in the abstract 
 about " the way of the superior man," i but Kttle power to enforce its 
 precepts. It is like a modern engine, built with mechanical skill and 
 elaboration, but destitute of the facilities for generating steam. 
 
 The social fruits of Confucianism reveal the magnitude of this de- 
 fect. We find that the irresponsible power which has been given to 
 parents develops into a system of domestic 
 tyranny. The fine ethics of the home have been some social fruits of 
 of httle avail against the stormy waves of passion, Confucian ethics, 
 which have swept them under and obUterated them 
 in favor of a polygamous system. Truthfulness, sincerity, and the rec- 
 ognition of the rights of others have not been characteristic of Chinese 
 social life. Its failure to adjust moral standards to each other is seen 
 in the fact that the discharge of filial obligations is in reahty a sufficient 
 religious cult, and that duty, or even ordinary filial behavior towards 
 parents, takes precedence of what may be considered moral obhgation.2 
 The law of chastity applies only to woman ; for man there is license. 
 The fraternal relationship in the family, moreover, involves such a sub- 
 ordination on the part of the younger brother that there is practically 
 no equality in brotherhood, while " sisters are not even mentioned." 
 
 family, of society. We must further urge that many of the evils of Confucian civ- 
 ilization are inherent, and not accidental, that they are the fruits of the system of 
 teaching, and not simply those evils that belong to human nature, which Confucian 
 culture has not thus far succeeded in uprooting. Virtue is extolled as the highest 
 good, but it has no perennial fountains from which to derive its life. It is at best 
 only the fruit of self-culture, and begets in the heart of the Confucian scholar the 
 sense of superiority over other men. The tendency of this self-culture is revealed 
 in the fact that reverence for sages and ancestors has terminated in idolatry. Self- 
 ishness is the tap-root from which all the evils that afflict human nature have had 
 their nourishment ; and Confucian culture, while it has done much to repress the 
 repulsive manifestations of selfishness, has done little to check the luxuriance of its 
 growth. Selfishness rules in the relations of the family, in the intercourse of friend- 
 ship, in the organization of society, in the transaction of business, in the adminis- 
 tration of government, in the worship offered to ancestors, heroes, sages, and other 
 imagined gods. Even the best moral and spiritual aspirations of the people termi- 
 nate in self, and do not lay hold of any permanent good."— Rev. D. Z. Sheffield 
 (A. B. C. F. M.), in the " Report of the Shanghai Conference, 1890," p. 468. 
 
 1 Faber, " Systematic Digest," pp. 54-101. 
 
 2 " In China filial piety is recognized as the basis of social order. By the or- 
 thodox it is even held to supply the place of religion ; so that ' he who serves his 
 parents at home has no need to go far away to burn incense to the gods.' "—Martin, 
 " Hanlin Papers," Second Series, p. 199. 
 
442 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The nobler, the more vigorous, — in fact, the God-given and God-en- 
 forced, — ethical code of Christianity must be substituted in place of 
 the impersonal and imperfect ethical system of Confucius, if domestic 
 and social life in China and Japan is to take on a higher form and be 
 saved from degradation and decay. The supreme achievement of Chris- 
 tian missions would be to introduce God into China and Japan, and 
 give Him His rightful place of authority,^ and His Son Jesus Christ 
 His incarnate dignity and His mediatorial office. At present the ulti- 
 mate source of wisdom and of authority is the "nature of things." 
 Moral obligation is based upon what may be designated as the inher- 
 ent fitness of things, or upon the perception of the relation of man to 
 his environment, both material and social. The fountainhead of mo- 
 rality may be indicated as what ought to be — man himself being the 
 judge, and the constitution of nature and society being regarded as the 
 symbol of moral authority. Of this system of ethics Dr. Martin has 
 written : " Whatever of value to the student of virtue it may have con- 
 tained, it certainly did not contain the 'beginning of wisdom.' For, 
 skilfully as Confucius had woven the chain of human relationships, he 
 failed to connect the last link with heaven — to point out the highest 
 class of our relations. Not only, therefore, is one grand division of our 
 duties a blank in his system, but it is destitute of that higher light and 
 those stronger motives which are necessary to stimulate to the perform- 
 ance of the most familiar offices." ^ 
 
 3. The practical ethics of Hinduism have been incidentally before 
 us in previous lectures.^ Some of its moral teachings resemble those 
 of Buddhism, but in others we find something more degenerate and ob- 
 jectionable. In place of Buddhistic atheism we have pantheism as a 
 
 1 " It may be true enough that God reflects His will sometimes in the deepest 
 instincts of our nature, sometimes in the organic requirements of human society, 
 which, indeed, is not less His work than are the body and soul of man ; but unless 
 moral precepts be rested on belief in Him, ay, and, let me add, on what He has 
 told us about Himself and His will, they will not really control conduct and life in 
 the long run. A society which is losing or which has lost those masculine beliefs, 
 those energetic, soul-controlling convictions, which purify and invigorate the heart 
 and will, cannot recover its vital forces by a talismanic repetition of beautiful moral 
 sentiments or by a picturesque delineation of their practical effect." — Liddon, 
 " Essays and Addresses," pp. 58, 59. 
 
 2 Martin, " The Chinese : Their Education, Philosophy, and Letters," pp. 132, 
 133. For an elaborate exposition of Confucian ethics, consult the article from which 
 the above quotation is taken, entitled " Remarks on the Ethical Philosophy of the 
 Chinese," ibid., pp. 125-149. The same essay is published in " Hanlin Papers," 
 First Series, pp. 163-193, and in the volume of The Princeton Review for 1862. 
 
 » Supra, pp. 72,89-91, 119-125, 131-133. 157. 241-251, 331-333. 387-389- 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 443 
 
 philosophical and polytheism as a practical basis, and from an ethical 
 point of view the difference is slight. Over against the Buddhist nega- 
 tion of the soul as a distinct and permanent entity 
 we have the pantheistic conception of a temporary, 
 
 r , , . The ethics of Hinduism. 
 
 separate existence as part of a great whole, to be 
 in time absorbed again into the original substance 
 from which it came. In place of the distinctively spiritual and ethical 
 tone of original Buddhism we find a materialistic element and a ten- 
 dency to ^nature-worship which place Hinduism on a lower level and 
 give it a grosser trend. 
 
 The religious feelings of the early Hindu seem to a remarkable de- 
 gree to have been impressed with the phenomena of the material uni- 
 verse. Light, fire, the wonders and terrors of nature, the reproductive 
 powers, and even bodily stimulants and intoxicants, became objects of 
 religious veneration. An element of vague and undefined personality 
 attached itself to some mysterious beings, of whose existence the phe- 
 nomena of nature were the signs and evidences, and to whom religious 
 worship was rendered. The earliest of these seems to have ^been 
 Varuna, the God of Heaven, possibly the waning shadow of the true 
 God of early monotheism. Indra, a fierce and cruel deity, and many 
 others might be named. The tendencies of nature-worship led these 
 early Aryans by easy and sure steps downward towards polytheism and 
 idolatry, and into the realm of superstitions, charms, talismans, incan- 
 tations, sacrificial rites, and unrestricted ceremonialism, with a phenom- 
 enal development of sacerdotalism. The deities were not all good ; in 
 fact, those which were evil seemed to grow in number and power, and 
 must be especially recognized and propitiated. Thus the historic trend 
 developed into modem Hinduism— the most consummate product of 
 superstitious fear, religious pride, fleshly compromise, sacerdotal pre- 
 tension, and idolatrous abandon which the world has ever presented in 
 systematic form.^ 
 
 The elevation of the Brahman to the exclusive and mystical pre- 
 rogatives of the priesthood, whatever of national or racial basis there 
 may have been in the Aryan invasion for the caste system, synchro- 
 nizes precisely with its coalition and adoption as a characteristic of 
 Hinduism. Religion became a matter of external rites performed by 
 an exclusive caste, with hardly any reference to spiritual worship of a 
 
 1 Cf. article on " Hinduism as It Is," by the Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., 
 D.D., in The Missionary Review of the World, April, 1897. Dr. Chamberlain 
 rightly objects to the thoroughly untrue and idealized picture of Hinduism which 
 was presented by Swami Vivekananda and others at the Parliament of Religions. 
 
444 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 supreme deity. The era of speculation and philosophy led Hinduism 
 into the mazes of an intellectual labyrinth. The clue of primitive re- 
 vealed truth, if, indeed, it had not been already lost, was now wholly 
 gone, and with it all hope of philosophical sobriety and sanity. It is 
 a question if modern Hinduism does not represent the most startUng 
 and dismal aberrations in the history of religious speculation.^ 
 
 The foundation of ethics, according to Hinduism, is neither in God 
 nor in the God-implanted conscience. Pantheism refers questions of 
 ethics ultimately to the human reason, or at least to 
 The Hindu regulates human interpretations of the system of nature, which 
 his own standards. of course Can be made to subserve man's own pur- 
 pose, while the measure of responsibility is reduced 
 to a minimum. Polytheism will give its sanction to almost any virtue 
 or any vice which the imagination of man may conceive. The very 
 sins and cruelties of the Hindu have in many instances an ethical and 
 religious endorsement. Nothing can be more erroneous and danger- 
 ous than the Hindu conception of the Godhead as an unconscious sub- 
 stratum of being which becomes conscious in the material universe,* or 
 in living creatures, or in divinities which man's imagination has cre- 
 ated. By this process the stream of ethical thought is poisoned at its 
 
 1 " Hinduism, as it has been developed during the last thousand or twelve hun- 
 dred years, resembles a stupendous, far-extended building, or series of buildings, 
 which is still receiving additions, while portions have crumbled and are crumbling 
 into ruin. Every conceivable style of architecture, from that of the stately palace 
 to the meanest hut, is comprehended in it. On a portion of the structure here or 
 there the eye may rest with pleasure, but as a whole it is an unsightly, almost mon- 
 strous, pile. Or, dismissing figures, we must describe it as the most extraordinary 
 creation which the world has seen— a jumble of all things : polytheistic pantheism; 
 much of Buddhism ; something apparently of Christianity, but terribly disfigvired ; a 
 science wholly outrageous ; shreds of history twisted into wild mythology ; the bold 
 poetry of the older books understood as literal prose ; any local deity, any demon of 
 the aborigines, however hideous, identified with some accredited Hindu divinity ; 
 any custom, however repugnant to common sense or common decency, accepted and 
 explained ; in a word, later Hinduism has been omnivorous ; it has partially absorbed 
 and" assimilated every system of belief, every form of worship, with which it has 
 come in contact. Only to one or two things has it remained inflexibly true. It has 
 steadily upheld the proudest pretensions of the Brahman, and it has never relaxed 
 the sternest restrictions of caste. We cannot wonder at the severe judgment pro- 
 nounced on Hinduism by nearly every Western author. According to Macaulay, 
 'all is hideous and grotesque and ignoble ' ; and the calmer De Tocqueville maintains 
 that ' Hinduism is perhaps the only system of belief that is worse than having no 
 religion at all.' "—J. Murray Mitchell, " The Hindu Religion : A Sketch and a Con- 
 trast" (No. 33 of " Present-Day Tracts "), pp. 32, 33. 
 
 2 Monier-Williams, " Hinduism," p. 86. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 445 
 
 fountainhead. It is made corrupt and deadly before it enters into the 
 life of man, where it is often transformed into moral rottenness. This 
 becomes in its turn, according to pantheism, a revelation of deity ; so 
 the vicious circle is complete. Personal guilt is thus a very second- 
 ary matter. It is almost impossible for a Hindu to sincerely and 
 humbly repent before a Supreme Being for what he himself is morally. 
 Ceremonialism is the highest law of his rehgion, and morality in 
 thought and conduct is something which historically he regulates for 
 himself. Atonement is thus transferred from a moral to a ceremonial 
 plane and becomes only puerile in its spirit and practice. The goal of 
 personal holiness embodied in permanent character is out of sight. The 
 transmigration of the soul is the most that Hinduism can promise until 
 there is final absorption and extinction in the great ocean of being. 
 
 With this system as its foundation, do we wonder that the ethical 
 code of Hinduism has gone astray to an extent hardly paralleled in 
 religious history ? It has degraded the sources of its authority by its 
 bald pantheism and the low moral character of its gods ; it has devised 
 principles and precepts which are an offense to even the natural cout 
 science of man ; it has produced discord in moral relationships ; it has 
 confused the physical and the spiritual ; it has adopted and sanctioned 
 caste, making moral and religious differentiation a matter of blood and 
 fate rather than of character ; ^ it has shadowed family hfe by its treat- 
 ment of women, by child-marriage and the horrors of Indian widow- 
 hood, which would still include the sati if all restraint were withdrawn. 
 
 The notes of failure in Hindu ethics are discovered when we point 
 out that there must be a changed conception of God in His being. His 
 personality. His relation to the universe, His moral 
 character, and His supreme authority; another some grave defects in 
 view of the personality and destiny of man ; a rec- "'■"*" ethics, 
 
 ognized distinction between the moral and the 
 immoral ; a cleansing of the Augean pantheon of the gods ; a recogni- 
 tion of righteous character combined with humility as the true sign of 
 honorable caste in the spiritual kingdom ; a discovery of the dignity of 
 the inner graces of purity and love in contrast with empty ceremonial- 
 ism ; an acceptance of the practical obligations of brotherhood and hu- 
 manity as regards the submerged nine tenths of India ; a discrediting of 
 asceticism as the badge of holiness and the sign of superiority ; a total 
 change in the status and treatment of woman ; a suppression of child- 
 marriage ; a removal of the disabilities of widowhood ; and an abolish- 
 ment of the unclean scandals connected with shrines and temples. 
 1 See supra, pp. 241-251. 
 
446 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Several of these may seem to be religious rather than strictly ethical 
 features of Hinduism, but a true and vital system of ethics depends 
 upon a religious basis. If religion goes wrong, then ethics are sure to 
 be bUghted or distorted. It is impossible, moreover, to derive the 
 ethics of Christianity from the religion of the Hindu. No permanent 
 or worthy system of ethics can be founded on Indian pantheism. 
 Hindu reform movements, unless they are essentially Christian, are 
 therefore doomed to failure. " Eack to the Vedas " as the watchword 
 of a Brahmanical revival is no doubt an attractive idea to devout Hin- 
 dus, but as a method of reform it is a delusion. Nothing can grapple ' 
 with the deep-rooted religious and social customs of Hinduism which 
 does not arise in the strength of a renewed nature and in the power of 
 a transformed character. The only twice-born men who can change 
 the morals of India for the better are those who are bom again by 
 God's Spirit into the likeness of Christ. 
 
 4. The ethics of Islam remain to be considered. Mohammedanism 
 originated in an attempt at reconstruction by one who was profoundly 
 
 and justly dissatisfied with the religious life of his 
 
 The strength and the times. His souTces of information were Jewish, 
 
 weakness of Islam. Christian, and heathen, for the religious hfe of 
 
 Arabia in the seventh century was essentially 
 heathenism. Islam is therefore a compilation of teachings and prac- 
 tices drawn from the above sources, and expanded under the guidance 
 and pressure of circumstances into a system. Its strength has been 
 that much essential truth was incorporated, chiefly adapted from Juda- 
 ism ; in fact, in many respects Islam is a garbled reproduction of the 
 religion of the Old Testament, with the evangehcal element left out and 
 its ethics twisted and misinterpreted. Its weakness consists in the 
 adoption of religious ideas and social customs which are satiu'ated with 
 error, loathsome with immoraUty and injustice, antagonistic to both 
 natural and revealed ethics, and stale with the provincialism of the 
 desert. 
 
 Mohammed's Conception of God is, after all, but a half-truth. 
 Some attributes have been grasped boldly and firmly, but are altogether 
 
 out of focus with other perfections which, although 
 Half-truths and ethical essential elements of the divine character, have 
 
 compromises of the . 
 
 Moslem religion. been Ignored or mismterpreted. The deity pre- 
 sented in Islam represents an effort of the Arabian 
 imagination to adjust God to an uncouth and immoral human environ- 
 ment, without too much disturbance of the moral status quo. Some 
 characteristics of the Godhead have been exalted and emphasized to the 
 
y 
 
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 in 
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 M 
 
 z 
 
 < 
 s 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 >. I 
 
 < ' 
 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 447 
 
 extent of exaggeration ; others have been forgotten and eliminated to the 
 extent of detraction. The Moslem, true to the Eastern conception of 
 absolutism, has drawn a realistic picture of the inexorable supremacy of 
 God as the master of destiny and the universal ruler, while, on the other 
 hand, no one can fail to perceive how offensive to a desert warrior of 
 the faith is the Gospel of heavenly condescension as revealed in the In- 
 carnation, the Atonement, and the doctrine of divine indwelling, or in 
 the privileges of fellowship, communion, and personal, spiritual union 
 of the soul of man with its God. It is true that Mohammedanism 
 declares God to be " compassionate and merciful," but it is to sin as 
 well as to the sinner that He offers His condoning grace. Herein is the 
 fatal defect in the ethics of Islam. God is made to forget Himself and 
 to become in certain respects a participator by law and by sanction in 
 the iniquities of the Islamic code and the irregularities of Islamic prac- 
 tice. More than this, with bold and shocking reahsm, God is pictured 
 on the throne of His majesty, in the white light of His stainless purity, 
 as the distributor of " houris with large dark eyes," and the maker of 
 " lofty couches " for the nameless pleasures of Paradise.i 
 
 Mohammed as a reformer was incapable of coping with his moral 
 and social environment. The result has been that, owing partly to his 
 imperfect vision of truth and his inability to comprehend the higher 
 moral harmonies of righteousness, and partly through force and stress 
 of circumstances as his leadership became more real and responsible, 
 he compromised and adjusted both religion and morality to the degen- 
 erate spirit and life of his times. He grasped the sword; he toyed 
 with sin ; he made it easy for men to be his followers without a break 
 with scandalous social customs ; he made room for iniquities which to 
 his moral sense at least were venial,— perhaps not even objectionable, 
 —or which, in any event, it would cost too much to condemn ; he con- 
 ceived the idea of a religious headship holding at the same time the 
 sceptre of political power. 
 
 The results are Islamic history written in blood and tears, a militant 
 reUgion with a trail of despotism covering large sections of three con- 
 tinents, and an ethical and social system which has 
 not ceased to be a menace to the world. Its civil islamic ethics far below 
 creed is powerless to lead mankind out of degra- tiie danger point, 
 dation, since it despises woman, sanctions polyg- 
 amy and concubinage, allows divorce at will, and justifies slavery. 
 Its political creed will never point the way to freedom— rather it for- 
 
 » The Koran, sura 56, verses 12-37. Cf. also sura 55, verses 54-78; sura 2, 
 verse 25 ; sura 3, verse 15. 
 
448 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ever sounds its knell.^ Its fanaticism, which has usually been quiescent 
 by restraint rather than by choice, is still ready for any excesses with all 
 who do not yield allegiance to its demands. Its political supremacy 
 has exercised over soul and body a withering bondage, and its religious 
 experience has been legalistic and external, making man's higher life a 
 round of observances rather than an inner spirit of moral purity and 
 power. Words hardly seem needed to show that the ethics of Islam 
 have sunk far below the danger point, and that social life can never be 
 morally pure, or political progress be towards light and freedom, or 
 individual standards of living become ethically straight and sound, 
 until a nobler moral code shall prevail. The stern finger of history, 
 dark with blood-stains of the past, and dripping even now with the 
 fresh blood of victims, points steadily to the outer darkness of social 
 barbarism and political tyranny as the unchangeable way of Islam. 
 
 It is hardly worth our while to take up in detail other non-Christian 
 religions. Those that have been mentioned are representative, and in 
 some respects the best that can be found in the history of the race. 
 
 If we now call Christianity to our aid as a teacher of social ethics, 
 we are conscious at once of a marvelous and subtle change in the moral 
 
 atmosphere. There is not only high obligation, 
 
 The nobility of Chris- conscious responsibility, and recognized account- 
 
 tian ethics. ability, but there is sufficient authority to quicken 
 
 and invigorate the conscience. We enter an at- 
 mosphere of love, loyalty, and privilege. We have a high code of 
 social duty, vivified by the personal influence and winsome example of 
 Christ, the great Teacher and Exemplar. Christ's assumption of His 
 supreme place as the ruler of human society is called by Dr. Fairbairn 
 "the most dramatic moment in the experience of collective man." 
 When our Lord enters the realm of human intercourse and mutual ob- 
 ligation He brings with Him those matchless ethical principles which 
 make the social standards of Christianity the most refining and enno- 
 bling that the world has ever known. These principles, fortified by 
 Christ's love and put into practice, are not only regulative, they are - 
 
 1 "If in Christendom the attempt has been often made to weave into one in- 
 extricable woof the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Caesar, yet, as we thank- ' 
 fully own, in the end the attempt has always failed. In Islam it has completely i 
 succeeded, and succeeded, not as a perversion and defeat of the intentions with which \ 
 Mahometanism was founded, but as the truest realization of all which it was intended | 
 to be. The despotisms of the East are not accidents, but the legitimate results of 
 the Koran ; and so long as this exists as the authoritative book nothing better can 
 come in their stead."— Trench, " Lectures on Medieval Church History," pp. 55, ' 
 56- 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 449 
 
 aggressive. They rule out what is evil ; they rule in what is right. 
 No hoary custom is sacred if it is wrong ; no time-honored traditions 
 are to be spared if they should perish ; no selfish indulgences are to be 
 condoned if they do injury to our fellows ; no code of indiflEerence, or 
 fatalistic pessimism, or laissez-faire philosophy is to be allowed to hold 
 sway in defiance of the Gospel law of love. The social code of Chris- 
 tianity touches the conscience, awakens responsibility, and inspires 
 action. It is broad and far-reaching in its scope ; it insists upon in- 
 dividual and domestic purity; it introduces the principles of liberty, 
 toleration, individual equality before God, justice, philanthropy, mutual 
 respect and consideration, and the highest standards of righteousness, 
 as equally binding in all social relations as in the individual life. It 
 has a clear and ringing message as to the honor of womanhood, the 
 rights of children, the sanctity of marriage, the duties of truthfulness, 
 morality, and temperance, the obligation to respond to the claims of 
 humanity, the call of suffering, and the appeal of the weak and de- 
 pendent. It teaches a noble ideal of citizenship, and enforces that 
 consideration which is due to the public weal from every individual 
 member of society. It presents a high standard of commercial integ- 
 rity, and denounces fraud and deceit in business as an offense, in view 
 not only of what man owes to man, but to God as well. It scrutinizes 
 the principles and practices of government, and is in active sympathy 
 with just taxation, equitable laws, and their fair execution ; it looks into 
 prisons and into all departments of civil and police administration. It 
 brings to book ecclesiastical authorities wherever a religious hierarchy 
 assumes to countenance moral laxity by license or example. It de- 
 mands religious liberty even at a perilous cost. 
 
 Christianity stands for much besides, but it is essentially a teacher of 
 ethics, and as such it has never faltered or failed. From its earliest 
 conflicts with the abominations of Roman society down to our own 
 times it has been a fountain of ethical culture and a valiant champion 
 of morals. " The early churches were societies for the amendment of 
 life," and the Christian atmosphere to-day in all lands is one in which 
 immorality is treason, and injustice an intolerable offense. The Chris- 
 tian spirit, moreover, if it is true to itself, must seek, not its own, but 
 that which is its neighbor's. It cannot be bribed into silence, it can- 
 not be cowed into acquiescence, it cannot be beguiled into indifference, 
 when it is face to face with what is unfair, unjust, unrighteous, and 
 morally injurious to society. It has no easy battle to fight. Christian 
 social ethics are and must be miUtant in their spirit throughout non- 
 Christian society. In fact, they must be militant here in the best at- 
 
450 CHRIS7IAI^^!^^S^^^^^^^^^^^w^^^^^^^^^^^S^5^^^ 
 
 mosphere of Christendom. No man liveth to himself if he is an apt 
 pupil in the school of Christianity, and it is an immense and splendid 
 gain wherever this new code is made effective in the practical life of 
 heathenism. It is just here that one of the noblest functions of Chris- 
 tian missions appears ; for how can the Christian system of ethics be 
 introduced into the personal and social life of heathen lands except by 
 their agency? 
 
 V 
 
 Christianity introduces a new moral force into social life. No one 
 can come into close contact with Oriental lands, or with primitive con- 
 ditions in any part of the non-Christian world, 
 Christianity introduces without being conscious of the overshadowing 
 
 new moral forces into r i i -i mi \ r^ • 
 
 mission lands. power of the dead past. To be sure, the Onent 
 of to-day is awakening, but only in sections of its 
 vast area, and not even in these scattered localities by virtue of any 
 inherent tendencies towards progress, but because Christian missions 
 and Western enterprise are beginning to exert their quickening and 
 broadening influence. This change comes slowly, and the historic en- 
 vironment is still mighty. The stupefying spell of inertia, the holding 
 power of conservatism, the misguiding influence of false patriotism, the 
 tyranny of custom, the fear of persecution, the dread of defying public 
 opinion, the apathy of intellectual and moral sluggishness, incapacity to 
 deal with new social questions, and habitual surrender to tradition and 
 archaic usage, are still the reigning factors in Oriental society. There 
 is no vivid consciousness of the possibility of better things, no inspiring 
 call to action, movement, agitation, and struggle towards reform. The 
 law of heredity has been working the wrong way for centuries, until 
 moral capacity has lost its fibre and become enervated and all but life- 
 less in its stagnation. All things yield to the thrall of moral surrender. 
 The will-power lies in a dead calm, sleeping in the lotus-laden air of 
 that to-morrow and to-morrow spirit of the Orient. Under such con- 
 ditions as these a self -prompted and aggressive movement for social 
 reformation is not within the range of probability, unless a life-giving 
 breath of higher aspiration comes to quicken the deadened sensibilities. 
 
 Christianity, however, brings new energies, new ideals, and new 
 hopes. Its historic record in all ages reveals a wonderful and subtle 
 power to develop unexpected, even unsuspected, capacities in individ- 
 ual men, and to crystallize character in society. It can do what noth- 
 ing else can accomplish ; it can make alive. It possesses the power of 
 moral change, the secret of a quickened conscience ; it can renew and 
 

 
 
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CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 461 
 
 transform the man, no matter what may have been his antecedents, 
 and however discouraging his surroundings. Then what a penetrating 
 and transforming power there is in the quiet working of its spiritual 
 leaven! what an intense touch, what a varied influence, what an all- 
 round enforcement of right principles and straight living! It is only 
 as social activities are rallied around recognized principles, and inspired 
 with Christian impulses, that the hght breaks, and the life comes, and 
 society becomes a new creature in which " old things have passed away." 
 Dr. James Stewart, in his beautiful volume upon "Lovedale," that 
 ideal missionary institution in South Africa, says in his chapter upon 
 " The One Hope of Africa " : "I never yet met an African who wanted 
 to be troubled with the Gospel till it began to trouble him. But when 
 it does trouble him effectually, marvellous is the change it makes. It 
 would delight the heart of the most thoroughgoing evolutionist of the 
 school to which the now distinguished author of 'Social Evolution' 
 belongs, to see how the preferences and ' interests of the individual ' 
 become subordinate to ' those of the social organism,' and how the an- 
 tagonism between 'the inner and the outer life, the natural man and 
 the spiritual man,' is reconciled when the new religion lays hold of 
 the slightly evolved primitive man. It all lies in this, that Christianity 
 awoke the sleeping spiritual man. Or if the evolutionist, as necessary 
 to his argument, will not concede that the spiritual man was sleeping, 
 the new religion took him by the hand and led him out of a land of 
 thick darkness, gloom, and horror, — filled with malevolent shades and 
 dreaded spectral powers, — and brought him into the clear, sweet light 
 of a simple belief in a God of goodness and love, such as Christianity 
 reveals. It cannot be otherwise, since that religion comes from Him 
 in whom is no darkness' at all." ^ 
 
 Christianity is morality, butit is far more than codified moral principles. 
 It is religious consciousness, but it is much more than an inward, emo- 
 tional experience. It is truth, but it is something finer and better than a 
 perfect norm of doctrine. It is truth lived, truth vitalized in character, 
 truth assimilated and reproduced in Christian manhood and woman- 
 hood. In the lawless it can inspire the love of order and respect for 
 authority. Nations of cannibals, as in the South Sea Islands, have been 
 made so orderly and law-abiding that no armed force is needed to 
 maintain the public peace. 
 
 There is a hopeful and permanent outlook to this transforming 
 power of Christianity in the fact that it is the universal custom of mis- 
 sions to develop the missionary spirit in native churches, to establish 
 1 Stewart, " Lovedale, South Africa," p. 43. 
 
452 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGKIiSS 
 
 institutions and implant moulding agencies which become growing 
 
 factors in social development. From every field which missions have 
 
 entered, far and near, among receptive races as 
 
 It carries with it the ^gU ag among those which were unresponsive 
 
 law of missionary _ . ., _ , . , . _ _ 
 
 service. ^'^^ unimpressible, come the same tidmgs of the 
 
 living energies of the Church of Christ, and its 
 adaptation, due to the indwelling Spirit of God, to introduce a new era 
 of social progress and nourish by its mysterious spiritual power the 
 impulses and aspirations of a better life. Transplant the Church of 
 Christ to any strange and hitherto alien society, and it carries with it 
 that great law of missionary propagation which its Master has imposed ; 
 and what is the spirit of missions embodied in that great command of 
 Christ other than the biblical or divine formula for individual and social 
 reform? It will make the Church of Christ in all heathen lands the 
 herald of a new age. With Christian missions come Christian litera- 
 ture and organizations for its dissemination, of which those noble 
 agencies, "The Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge 
 among the Chinese " and " The Christian Literature Society for India," 
 are conspicuous examples. Then, again, there are the vivifying and 
 stalwart energies of Christian education, in themselves an immense 
 increment to the vital forces of peoples who have hitherto lived in 
 ignorance. The mission school is the maker of a new generation in 
 mission lands, and a generation once educated demands a like priv- 
 ilege for its children. 
 
 Here are moral forces to conjure with in social development. They 
 are the makers of character. They fit men to rule themselves and to 
 rule each other, and no social conditions can be permanently bettered 
 unless there is character, individual and social, back of them. Chris- 
 tianity is our only hope where these transcendent spiritual forces are to 
 be planted anew in the deeper life of society. 
 
 VI 
 
 Christianity gives a new import and stimulus to benevolent and 
 
 philanthropic effort. We might say rather that it advocates a new 
 
 policy of kindliness, for heathenism, ancient and 
 
 Christianity a stimulus modem, has practically no programme of philan- 
 
 to philanthropy. thropy and humanitarian ministry. That this is 
 
 true of ancient pagan cults is the testimony of 
 
 history, emphasized by the highest scholarship. We do not mean that 
 
 either in ancient or modern times separate acts of beneficence and 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 453 
 
 charity were not to be found, or that there were no tender hearts, no hu- 
 mane sympathies, among individual members of society. Instances 
 which reveal kindly instincts and generous deeds on the part of large- 
 hearted men and women may be found, as Uhlhorn has indicated. What 
 we understand, however, by benevolence, philanthropy, and humanita- 
 rian charity, as a religious principle in contradistinction to an individual 
 impulse, as a code of duty in social relations, as a system to be advo- 
 cated, sustained, and continuously practised, was not, or is not now, a 
 feature of ethnic religions. If the semblance of an argument to the 
 contrary can be based upon the theoretical content and philosophical 
 spirit of their sacred books, it cannot be argued with any success from 
 the evidence of practical living, or demonstrated by the actual outcome 
 of the social history of heathen society. Regulated and systematic 
 benevolence is historically a child of Christianity. 
 
 We could present not a few instances and illustrations from modem 
 missionary history revealing the growing impulses of Christian philan- 
 thropy in the lives of converts and in the organized 
 work of mission churches. Examples like the luustrations from the 
 Okayama Orphanage of Mr. Ishii, in Japan, are *>='"*■ 
 
 visible signs of that philanthropic culture which 
 the reUgion of Christ, in spite of many hindrances, quickens as beauti- 
 fully in the Christian hearts of the present generation as in those of any 
 other age. The postal telegraph and the railway were hardly estab- 
 lished in Japan before a " Postal Telegraph Mission " and a " Mission 
 to Railway Men " were organized — the former reaching with a gift of 
 the Scriptures and a personal message each postmaster in the realm, 
 and the latter visiting through its agents every railway station in the 
 empire, providing it with a copy of the New Testament, and seeing 
 personally its employees. There are already movements on behalf of 
 prisoners both before and after their exit from the jail. And so the 
 great outlying field of social life, with its toilers, its outcasts, its dis- 
 tressed victims of crime and calamity, is entered by the Christianity of 
 mission fields — somewhat slowly, it may be, but in the end as ear- 
 nestly and as loyally as elsewhere ; and the same sweet story of large- 
 hearted charity which has characterized its earlier history will mark 
 the development of the Christian spirit in the environment of modem 
 heathenism. 
 
 Another and a very important phase of this philanthropic ministry 
 is its programme for the elevation and improvement of society, as well 
 as for the rehef of its distresses. Christianity stands for the making as 
 well as the mending of mankind. It believes in the discipline of im- 
 
454= CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 provement as well as in remedial offices in behalf of the unfortunate. 
 It is working towards a "new heaven and a new earth," and not 
 merely one which is patched up and made over on the principle of 
 doing the best you can with a hopeless case. 
 
 I do not see, therefore, how any candid student of the social and 
 
 economic progress of the world can fail to be impressed with the value 
 
 of missions as a reforming, civilizing, and philan- 
 
 Miasions entitled to a thropic agency. Where can we find an instrument 
 
 place among civilizing l i 
 
 agencies. SO Capable, SO efficient, so direct and resistless in 
 
 its workings upon the inner life and the outward 
 form of society? Are we to wait forever upon evolution, when the 
 secret and power of involution has been committed to our trust? In 
 this sphere of service missions have been quietly working to an extent 
 which has secured scant attention in comparison with their more spirit- 
 ual achievements. Their social influence has developed slowly and is 
 not conspicuous as yet in its visible outcome ; but the task is immense and 
 difficult, and it is not strange that results should mature gradually and 
 somewhat obscurely. If, however, it is true, as we may surely believe, 
 that Christian missions carry with them to non-Christian lands a sover- 
 eign and effective method of deliverance from sin, while at the same 
 time they implant in the life of society new capacities, new desires, new 
 motives, new appreciations, perfected ethics, vitalized moral forces, and 
 fresh altruistic impulses, then Christianity is indeed the hope, as its 
 Master is the Light, of the world. It is, at least in its spiritual sphere 
 of influence and impulse, a divine remedy for social evils and a divine 
 programme of social progress. Its ideals and its resources for realiz- 
 ing them form the noblest spiritual gifts of God to human society. 
 We do not mean, of course, that the religion of Christ indicates precisely 
 the practical method of dealing with social problems either at home 
 or abroad, but that it creates the atmosphere which makes the approach 
 to their solution easy and possible ; it lays down principles which are 
 a mighty solvent of difficulties; it puts into the heart the paramount 
 'desire for an honorable and fair adjustment of mutual rights ; it gives 
 lan infallible standard of justice and morality which points to the con- 
 ditions of a true and permanent civilization. No problem can be 
 finally solved, no evils can be effectually banished, unless approached 
 in a spirit essentially Christian. No system of sociology as a 
 whole can be finally adopted and >made serviceable to society, unless 
 it is pervaded by Christian ideals. apd:. controlled by Christian jirin- 
 ciples. 
 
Class in Carpentry — Industrial Department. 
 
 Class in Wagon-making— Industrial Department. 
 
 LovEDAtE Institution^ South Africa (F. c. S.) 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 455 
 
 VII 
 
 We have considered in some of its prominent features the adapta- 
 tion of Christianity to produce satisfactory results in the realm of social 
 regeneration. Another and an important question 
 remains to be considered : Is historic Christianity '^ historic Christianity 
 capable of accomplishing this noble mission? Is 'TasrenVuT,i«d"'' 
 it what the individual and social man universally 
 needs? Is it suited to every race and to every phase of rehgious and 
 social degeneracy? Is its influence aUke helpful and effective to all 
 national temperaments and all racial developments? Is it indeed uni- 
 versal, in its adaptability, unlimited in its capability, indestructible in 
 its spiritual forces, imperishable in its historic position, with power to 
 adjust itself to every nationality and every social environment, and to 
 work out its surpas'sing results in every land and every century without 
 the slightest diminution of its vigor or the least decadence of its mas- 
 tery over the history and destiny of the human race? 
 
 We have no hesitation in replying to this question in the affirmative, 
 and with a special emphasis on the word " historic." Indeed, it is just 
 historic Christianity— that is, Christianity true to 
 
 its historic ideal — which is needed, with its incar- "''''* supematuraiism 
 
 _, . , . , , „- , . .of Christianity is the 
 
 nate Chnst, its revealed Word, its regenerating secret of its power. 
 Spirit, its illuminating doctrine, its basis of sober 
 history, its practical inspiration, its law of righteousness, its mighty secret 
 of love, its lessons of brotherhood, charity, simplicity, humility, and 
 crowning devotion to the welfare of humanity. These supernatural 
 agencies and spiritual forces are not in the least irrational or incon- 
 gruous in that divine system which has been estabhshed for the govern- 
 ment and development of the race. In God's working plan both the 
 supernatural and natural cooperate in harmonious unity; they often 
 coalesce, so that to man's vision the dividing-line is blotted out. It is not 
 necessary, as some mediators in the interest of science are inclined to 
 do, to resolve the supernatural, almost to the extent of effacement, into 
 the natural ; nor is it wise to suppose, with others, that there is any 
 hopeless conflict or mutual antagonism between nature and reason. 
 There is surely a higher unity which nature, reason, and the supernat- 
 ural subserve, each in its place, in fulfilling the divine purpose. All 
 of these have ministered to the culture of man and the progress of the 
 race ?is chosen instruments of a Supreme Will whope piastery ovey 
 
456 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 them is complete, yet without any dishonor or misuse of any one of 
 thcm.i 
 
 Staking all upon nature, and making faith in the apparent teachings 
 
 of biological history, however instructive in their proper sphere, a source 
 
 of certitude more solid and satisfying than faith in 
 
 A Bufficient basis for the supernatural as revealed in the spiritual and 
 
 faith in the Christian . , . , ... , „ , . 
 
 system. providential activities of God, is placin g the limited 
 
 powers of nature too exclusively in the foreground. 
 It is reducing the Deity to the domain and dictum of science to an 
 extent which cannot be justified when we consider the explicit teach- 
 ings of Scripture on the subject, and the immense probability in favor 
 of other methods used by God in guiding humanity towards perfection. 
 We must not forget either that a notable majority of master minds, 
 eminent in the history of mankind for intellectual insight and discrim- 
 ination, have regarded the evidences of a supernatural system as 
 worthy of their abiding confidence. The inner realm of God's gracious 
 contact with the individual intelligence of man is an unwritten, even 
 unknown, factor in history, and it is just here, in the scope and power 
 of the supernatural, that there is possible reconciliation of the mysteries 
 of God's dealings with man. The diflSculty is that absolute demonstra- 
 tion is practically impossible ; yet to him who has eyes to see and ears 
 to hear, there is ever accessible a realm of experimental evidence where 
 
 1 " The belief, absorbing and pervading, of the Kingdom of God was the heart 
 and strength of the Psalmists' religion. With this belief they interpreted their own 
 marvellous history ; with this belief they looked abroad on nature, they trained and 
 quickened their own souls. Translated into our modern ways of speaking, it was 
 a profound, ever-present conviction of the reality of the supernatural and unseen. 
 I say ■ supernatural ' for want of a better word. I mean that, beyond and around 
 this great familiar order of things under which we live, and our fathers have lived 
 before us, whose general conditions and laws we have faculties to discern, there is 
 another and greater order implied in the very mention of the name of God ; an order 
 whose laws and ways, except that they must be moral ones, we know not and cannot 
 know. To the Psalmists the Kingdom of God is not merely an ideal, but, though 
 they cannot explain or grasp it, an actual, present reality. The things unseen are 
 ever accompanying, bordering on, influencing, the things that are seen. That real 
 existence, which we, with our habits of thought and imagination, confine to things 
 which we can handle and test here, belongs as certainly to the works and doings of 
 the unseen Lord of the world in that vaster universe which even our thoughts can- 
 not reach to. And it was not only the reality of this unseen system and order which 
 had such hold on the Psalmists' minds : it was its supremacy over that order to 
 which we are here accustomed, its continual presence, its uninterrupted permanence. 
 The things which are seen — it was their faith as well as St. Paul's — are for the time; 
 the things which are not seen are eternal."— Dean Church. " Pascal, and other Ser- 
 mons," pp. 167, 168. 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 457 
 
 individual belief may be nourished and deepened into personal con- 
 viction. As a general rule, however, the law of faith is fundamental 
 in the spiritual kingdom ; but we may have faith in the direct activities 
 of God through spiritual agencies in the history of universal man, as 
 well as in nature and natural law. They all represent the open secret 
 of His system of government. We shall then have all that faith needs 
 to sustain and cheer the heart and to illumine the inteUigence in face 
 of the " Riddle of Existence." 
 
 That the actual progress of Christianity in the world has been 
 characterized by many a slip— that, as exhibited in the lives of men, it 
 has often missed its opportunity, neglected its priv- 
 ileges, misused its power, and been untrue to its Historic Christianity 
 Lord in spirit and practice— cannot be denied. defined. 
 
 Misinterpreted and misapplied Christianity, how- 
 ever, is not historic, except in the sense of a defective exemplification 
 ■of it. Its true historic character as a religious system is based upon 
 the facts which mark and distinguish its genesis and history as a God- 
 founded and God-established rehgion, and which differentiate its teach- 
 ings, requirements, and ideals from all other religious systems. His- 
 toric Christianity is God-illumined rather than man-reflected. There 
 is no one period of Church life to which we can point and say, " Here 
 we find ideal historic Christianity fully, absolutely, and universally re- 
 produced in human experience." 
 
 There is a serious difficulty, therefore, in identifying its reproduction 
 in human life with its ideal character. We turn to the original con- 
 ception, the essential essence of the religion of Christ as He revealed it 
 in His life and example, and as His Word pictures it, and estabhsh its 
 historic character upon the basis of its genesis, requirements, and 
 manifest tendencies. To what extent fundamental and ideal Chris- 
 tianity has been exemplified in the world concerns its reproduction in 
 the lives of its followers rather than its historic character. It is happily 
 true that its history has been also a practical exemplification of its prin- 
 ciples in the lives of sincere believers and loyal followers in all ages — 
 not by any means a perfect exemplification, but one which God has 
 manifestly been pleased to accept and honor, and which the world has 
 recognized with admiration and reverence. It must be acknowledged, 
 however, that the glorious name and the fair fame of Christianity have 
 been sadly tarnished and dimmed by corruptions of doctrine, usurpa- 
 tions of authority, and travesties of practice. We may regard this as 
 the work of an enemy, involving a result which, in some respects, is a 
 practical reversal of the purpose of Christ. This corrupt product may 
 
458 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 be pronounced to be unworthy and unhistoric rather than historic. Only 
 biblical Christianity, Scriptural in theory and in practice, is representa- 
 tive and entitled to be called historic; and concerning this broadly 
 orthodox form — so broad as to include the true invisible Church of 
 Christ as represented in all evangehcal believers— it may be boldly 
 said that it is fully sufficient for the task of the world's social regen- 
 eration. 
 
 The distrust of historic Christianity, or rather the demand for a 
 
 revolutionary reconstruction of principles and methods, is traceable at 
 
 the present time to two sources. It is manifest in 
 
 Why is historic Chris- Christendom in a disposition on the part of some 
 
 tianity distrusted as a . , , . ^, . . . ■, • n 
 
 social power 7 social reformers to arraign Chnstiamty, chiefly as 
 represented in the visible Church, with intemper 
 ate criticism and severe condemnation as having outlived its usefulness, 
 because of its alleged indifference and scandalous shortcomings in the 
 sphere of social duty, and its unwillingness to exchange its function as 
 a spiritual teacher for a militant entrance into the arena of economic 
 conflict. Another manifestation of a distrustful and derogatory esti- 
 mate of the historic value of Christ's religion is to be found in the spirit 
 of compromise exhibited both at home and abroad. The new science 
 of the Comparative Study of Religion has allied itself in some instances 
 with a creed of rationalistic liberalism, and cultivated a tendency to 
 rate Christianity as simply one of many other equally accredited re- 
 ligions. In the foreign field an imperfect grasp of its unique and ex- 
 clusive character on the part of some native scholars has encouraged 
 a disposition to essentially modify it by a compromising combination 
 with other religious systems. 
 
 With reference to the assaults of radical reformers it is sufficient to 
 
 say that Christianity as God has given it, with its essential teachings 
 
 and ordinances, represents the most facile and 
 
 Are the criticisms of effective instrument for influencing the individual, 
 
 social extremists ,,.-.,,-^ 
 
 justified? and through the individual for renewing society, 
 
 which has yet been devised in the history of re- 
 ligion. If this is the divinely chosen system for bringing truth into 
 contact with men, then it is hardly to be expected that those who seek 
 light from God rather than from human wisdom will be prepared to 
 give up their faith in the value of Scriptural agencies. That Christian 
 methods of work may be improved and readjusted is true, and few, if 
 any, would assert that Christianity is fully grasping its opportunity; 
 but that the Church of Christ is the appointed instrument for develop- 
 ing spiritual culture and impulse is equally clear. There is an ever 
 
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CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 459 
 
 fresh opportunity for variety of method within certain limitations, and 
 for the wise adjustment of new devices for reaching and influencing 
 humanity, which are not out of harmony with the sacred character of 
 the Gospel and its spiritual aim. The noble principles of the New 
 Testament religion are capable of a dignified and tactful adaptation to 
 the special conditions of a modem environment without such revolu- 
 tionary changes in the historic institutions and methods of Christianity 
 as have been advocated by social extremists. Outside the realm of 
 organized Church life there is scope also for educational and philan- 
 thropic agencies independent of the distinctive functions of the Church, 
 yet at the same time reveahng the essence and power of the Christian 
 teaching for which the Church stands. Christianity in this sense is 
 larger than its visible environment of Church organization. Its min- 
 istry is not confined to the administration of Church ordinances. There 
 is an outer world of need where it may reveal itself in the organized 
 service of htunanity, exemplifying therein the principles which Christ 
 has commissioned His Church to uphold and practise. 
 
 In early history, let us remember, it was through the instrumentality 
 of the Church that the great social changes in the Roman Empire were 
 achieved, and it is the clear, indisputable dictum of honest history that 
 the spiritual Church of Christ has been in the forefront of social pro- 
 gress in all ages. There is a tendency just at present to criticize too 
 severely the supposed attitude of the Chiu:ch towards the economic and 
 social problems of the day. Let the temper of such criticism be modi- 
 fied by a recognition of the complex and perplexing difficulties of the 
 situation. It is a grave question, in which there is room for wide diver- 
 sity of opinion, as to how far, if at all, the Christian Church is respon- 
 sible for the acute status of modem economic problems, and also as 
 to what are the wisest and most useful methods for the Church to adopt 
 in undertaking to deal practically with these problems. We hear much 
 of Christian Socialism, but let us be careful that the Church is not be- 
 guiled into sociaUsm such as Christianity could not sanction nor under- 
 take to establish. There are wise and noble minds represented in or- 
 ganizations hke the Christian Social Union in England, presided over 
 by the distinguished Bishop of Durham, who are studying these themes , 
 with intellectual discemment and sympathetic insight, and light will 
 break ere long. The alleged failure of the Church to adjust itself to the 
 social conditions of our age, in an economic environment so full of 
 painful and grave embarrassments, must not be allowed to obscure or 
 discredit her splendid record as the foremost force of history in the 
 wide field of social reform and moral progress. 
 
460 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The spirit of compromise to which we have referred is too much 
 
 inclined to ignore the exclusive character of Christianity and its Old 
 
 Testament forerunner, which was itself in the direct 
 
 Must Christianity com- ji^e (,£ descent from primitive revelation, and to 
 
 promise with the .... 
 
 ethnic faiths ? tone dowH the Christian religion to a spiritual affin- 
 ity with ethnic systems. Christianity is thus made 
 to divide its honors with other rehgions, as differing from them, not in 
 genesis and kind, but merely in degree. A mistaken conception of the 
 origin of Christianity and the dignity of its lineage is usually at the 
 root of this inclination to rank it as on the same level with other reh- 
 gious systems. All religions, Christianity included, being regarded as the 
 product of evolutionary processes, the entire religious development of the 
 race is read and interpreted in terms of evolution. Christianity, there- 
 fore, becomes simply one branch of an original trunk, one phase of the 
 religious growth of mankind. In this aspect of it there is nothing ex- 
 clusive or supreme in its origin or history. Other rehgions are, accord- 
 ing to this view, as hkely to be true in their teaching, to reveal with 
 equal precision the will of God, and to contain genetic elements trace- 
 able to an origin not less worthy and authoritative. 
 
 A slightly different and even more subtle form of discrediting the 
 
 claims of Christianity in this spirit of compromise is to consider it as 
 
 the outcome and consummation of the religious 
 
 Shan Christianity be ■, c i a t 
 
 regarded as the out- searchmgs and Struggles of the race. According 
 growth of other reii- jq this notion, it is a sort of summum bonum of the 
 
 gious systems ? ,.. ,. , . . . ^ . i,, 
 
 religious history of mankind. It is conceded to be 
 an advance and improvement on other religions, but is made up of what 
 is good therein. Christ, according to this view, was a compiler rather 
 than an author of religion. While Christianity is acknowledged to be 
 divine in its dignity, it is not regarded as the only religion which God 
 has founded, or as the one religious system which can be directly 
 traced to a divine source, and which has come to man as a distinct gift 
 through chosen channels of inspiration based upon unique historic veri- 
 ties, and identified with the one incarnate Christ, the one divine Book, 
 and the one dispensation of the Spirit which human history has known. 
 Christianity stands rather as a supplement and consummation. It is 
 a sort of latter-day harvest and ingathering of all the excellencies of 
 other religious systems, and simply a fuller revelation of what had been 
 imperfectly presented therein. The result of this generalization is that 
 several ethnic religions must be regarded as occupying about the same 
 relation to Christianity that Judaism does. They are partial and prepar- 
 atory, or in some instances parallel, and find in Christianity their per- 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SOCIAL HOPE OF THE NATIONS 461 
 
 feet consummation. This idea so multiplies the channels of divine 
 communication with man that we must find God as a direct teacher 
 and a gracious, saving factor in all religions, which must be regarded 
 as authoritative expressions, albeit imperfect and partial, of His thought, 
 to be eventually supplemented by the Christian system. The logical 
 result of this conception is that Christianity, in its turn, may undergo a 
 process of evolution in its contact with and assimilation of existing ethnic 
 systems, and result in a compromise suited to the tastes of contempo- 
 rary heathenism. The moving current of religious evolution may thus 
 go on and on until the comprehensive, all-inclusive .conglomerate ap- 
 pears. The attitude of God, therefore, as a religious teacher in human 
 history has been tentative, with no marked discrimination in favor of 
 any one religious system, until by a process of combining shadowy 
 half-lights He has produced the fuller and more perfect light. 
 
 This whole theory, in both of its aspects, is unhistoric, unscriptural, 
 and even irrational. The religion of Christ is not an amalgam ; it is 
 not of mixed blood, a sort of Eurasian among re- 
 
 ... Ti • r 1 1.1 J -i f • T The unique and exclu- 
 
 hgions. It IS of royal blood ; its Imeage is direct sive glory of christian- 
 and its birth divine. The honor and dignity of its '*y "^ » religious 
 inheritance it can share with no other religion. ^^^ *"' 
 
 Although it is manifest that in other religious systems there may be 
 more or less original truth derived from primitive divine teaching, yet 
 as a whole they are so dominated by error and corrupted in practice 
 that the modicum of truth which they contain has been neutralized and 
 practically reversed by the predominance of the false over the true.i 
 
 1 " Take that Sacred Book of onrs ; handle reverently the whole volume ; search 
 it through and through, from the first chapter to the last, and mark well the spirit 
 that pervades the whole. You will find no limpness, no flabbiness about its utter- 
 ances. Even skeptics who dispute its divinity are ready to admit that it is a thor- 
 oughly manly book. Vigor and manhood breathe in every page. It is downright 
 and straightforward, bold and fearless, rigid and uncompromising. It tells you and 
 me to be either hot or cold. If God be God, serve him. If Baal be God, serve 
 him. We cannot serve both. We cannot love both. Only one name is given among 
 men whereby we may be saved. No other name, no other Saviour, more suited to 
 India, to Persia, to China, to Arabia, is ever mentioned — is ever hinted at. ' What ! ' 
 says the enthusiastic student of the science of religion, ' do you seriously mean to 
 sweep away as so much worthless waste-paper all these thirty stately volumes of 
 Sacred Books of the East just published by the University of Oxford? ' No, not at 
 «]1 ; nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we welcome these books. We ask every 
 missionary to study their contents and thankfully lay hold of whatsoever things are 
 true and of good report in them. But we warn him that there can be no greater 
 mistake than to force these non-Christian bibles into conformity with some scientific 
 theory of development, and then point to the Christian's Holy Bible As the crown 
 
462 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The fact that there is nothing which is true in itself in other religions 
 ■which is not more fully and perfectly revealed in Christianity does not 
 at all indicate that Christianity is therefore made up of what is good 
 in other radically defective or imperfectly developed religious systems. 
 While it may be correct that Christianity, in a certain sense, is a supple- 
 ment, complement, and corrective of other religions, yet this fact does 
 not give us the secret of its true genesis. It is thus perfect because it 
 is the gift of infinite intelligence. It is thus complete because it con- 
 tains, either in direct statement or by implication, all the absolute truth 
 which God has been pleased to reveal. 
 
 The norm of religious truth, which was implanted in the early his- 
 tory of the race, as we have reason to believe, by a primitive revela- 
 tion, was monotheism, with its simple duties of 
 Two general tendencies worship. Sacrifice, faith, and obedience. From 
 
 in the religious his- , . ^ . . 
 
 tory of mankind. this norm there was in one direction a development 
 towards corruption and apostasy, but with original 
 truth still hngering deeply imbedded in the religious creeds of heathen- 
 ism, however it may have been corrupted. This heritage of truth, with 
 much of its original hkeness destroyed, appeared in the later ethnic 
 systems of the world, but so distorted that it was recognizable with 
 difficulty. Yet in this sense there is truth in heathen systems, just as 
 there is God's likeness still in humanity, however fallen ; and this truth 
 in some individual instances has fructified into nobility and beauty of 
 character through what we must regard as the special agency of that 
 free Spirit of Life who worketh when and where He willeth. In fact, 
 all down the line of apostasy we may believe that God has not ceased 
 to vouchsafe to man many restraining influences in the form of gra- 
 cious solicitations, as He has certainly not failed repeatedly to warn 
 and rebuke by the visitations of His judgments. In another direction, 
 under the guidance and culture of persistent teaching and training 
 through direct spiritual instrumentalities, there was a development, 
 struggling and imperfect, it may have been, down an historical hue of 
 patriarchs, prophets, and the elect nation of Israel, towards the fuller 
 light and power of Christianity, which came to its culmination in its 
 appointed time. The first may be called, in a loose sense of the word, 
 
 ing product of religious evolution. So far from this, these non-Christian bibles are 
 all developments in the wrong direction. They all begin with some flashes of true 
 light and end in utter darkness. Pile them, if you will, on the left side of your study 
 table, but place your own Holy Bible on the right side — all by itself, all alone, and 
 with a wide gap between."— Sir Monier- Williams, in an address at the anniversary 
 of the Church Missionary Society, in London, 1887, 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE SoaAL ROPE OF THE NATIONS 463 
 
 an evolution of religious degeneracy, not without divine remonstrances, 
 and with attempts on the part of reformers at various stages in its his- 
 tory to stem the tide of apostasy and reverse to some extent the trend 
 of its debasement. The other was, in the same popular signification 
 of the term, under the special guidance of God, an evolution of theistic 
 doctrine. Messianic culture, moral training, ethical ideals, devout religious 
 experience, and spiritual standards of righteousness, which culminated 
 in the Christian system, with its Incarnation, Atonement, Regeneration, 
 organized institutions, and laws of a righteous life. 
 
 Christian missions are awakening at the present time all through 
 the world the echoes of that great conflict of early Christianity with 
 surrounding heathenism. The conditions are won- 
 derfully similar, and substantially the same perils Echoes of the early 
 
 , J ■ ., . -f . r , conflicts of Chris- 
 
 are involved m the issue. Let us not forget the tianity. 
 
 lessons of that conflict. The sad story of Chris- 
 tianity's degeneracy into medieval corruption and decay is simply the 
 result of an unhallowed alliance with heathenism with a view to com- 
 promise. Let us not forget that Christianity, like its Master and Lord, 
 is "chiefest among ten thousand," and that the holy seed planted in 
 heathen soil must bring forth after its kind if it is to survive and flour- 
 ish. God's supremacy can allow of no partnership. God's personality 
 cannot be interpreted in terms of pantheism. His spirituality will 
 tolerate no idolatry. His Incarnation is once for all consummated in 
 Jesus of Nazareth. His Spirit is alone the only possible source of 
 regenerate life. His Atonement can give no place to legalism. His 
 holiness can make no compromise with sin. And so Christianity through- 
 out all its essential features can neither acknowledge the coordinate 
 authority nor share the honors of its prestige with any other reUgion. 
 If it is true to itself in this respect, there need be no doubt of its suffi- 
 ciency. Tt has wrought with unrivalled mastery in the past ; it is still 
 achieving its victories, both at home an d abroad, in the present generation. 
 It retains every element of power ; it holds every 
 
 secret of past success. It is still as fully capable Universal mastery the 
 ^ ' •^ final heritage of Christ 
 
 of leadership, and as able to subsidize and trans- and His religion, 
 form for its high purposes all the forces of modern 
 times, as it has always been in the past. The wonder, the magic— the 
 divine wisdom, rather— of Christianity is its power of adjusting itself to 
 all human environments and of Christianizing without destroying them. 
 It transcends with its spiritual influence the institutions, laws, and cus- 
 toms of nations, and summons to its service literature, science, art, and 
 inventions. In this respect it reveals its immense superiority to mere 
 
464 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 civilization, which is an outgrowth of its environment, more or less ad- 
 vanced in different ages and localities, and in its spirit is subservient 
 rather than superior to its surroundings. The highest and noblest 
 achievement of Christianity, however, is its power to lead the individual 
 heart out of and above its environment into spiritual contact with 
 God. The transformed and renewed personality — kindly, unselfish, 
 true-hearted, and pure — is the ultimate solution of social evils and the 
 sure promise of a redeemed society, fashioned at last into the likeness 
 of Christ. 
 
 " All things grow sweet in Him, 
 
 In Him all things are reconciled. 
 All fierce extremes 
 
 That beat along Time's shore 
 
 Like chidden waves grow mild. 
 
 And creep to kiss His feet." 
 
LITERATURE AND AUTHORITIES FOR LECTURE IV 
 
 The bibliography of Lecture I being applicable for the most part to Lecture IV, many boolcs 
 which would otherwise find a place in the following list are omitted, because they are included in the 
 literature of that lecture. The bibliography of Lecture IV should, therefore, be supplemented by that 
 of Lecture I. The literature and authorides on ethnic religions have been placed in the bibliography 
 of Lecture III, to which the reader is referred. 
 
 Abbott, Rev. Lyman, Christianity and 
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